


Silver Screen Dream

by SnitchesAndTalkers



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Actor AU, Closeted Character, Discover how little I know about the movie industry, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Smut, every cheesy trope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2020-09-24 05:21:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 91,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20353054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnitchesAndTalkers/pseuds/SnitchesAndTalkers
Summary: A Hollywood AU in which Pete wishes Patrick could be a little more friendly and Patrick wishes Pete could be a little more talented.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You know what I really love the idea of? Patrick with a British accent. You know what I know very little about? The movie industry! Obviously, I decided to marry these two things together by writing a Hollywood AU. 
> 
> Thank you squid_in_disguise for being my resident movie industry/screenwriting/Los Angeles expert!

Patrick starts his day by getting run over. Which, it is universally agreed, is a _terrible_ way for anyone’s day to begin.

Well, not really. What actually happens is this: Patrick starts his day by rolling out of bed in his house in Maida Vale, situated on a street Jude Law used to live on but now doesn’t because Jude Law lives in Hollywood, where he makes multi-million dollar movies, and Patrick lives in West London, where _he _makes generally well-received TV shows in which he plays the police detective, or the school teacher, or the doctor. Which is absolutely fine because Maida Vale was convenient for the BBC studio until they closed the whole thing down and moved it to Manchester, and it’s only a few hours drive along the M4 to his mum in Wales, and air travel is a valid environmental concern, _thanks very much. _

But, once Patrick has rolled out of his bed and into his shower, then into a towel, then into his leather jacket by Impero and his jeans by Next, he has this bright idea that he might walk to a coffee shop and get some breakfast. And because it’s a gorgeous morning in London, because it’s crisp and cool and smells faintly of autumn as well as the exhaust fumes of several million cars and trucks and buses, he keeps walking until he hits Notting Hill and thinks maybe he’ll just keep going until he gets to Kensington and then his phone is ringing and he’s juggling it out of his pocket without dropping his wallet or losing his keys.

“Patrick! I’m about to make your weekend a lot more interesting.”

“What?” Patrick shouts, stepping into the road without looking. “What did you say?”

And _this_ is the moment that Patrick is run over.

The brakes squeal and so does Patrick and someone leans on a car horn and the old lady on the pavement behind him shouts, “That’s it, Satan, take _him_ today, instead!” Which, honestly, isn’t the strangest thing Patrick’s ever heard shouted from a pavement in central London but, again _honestly,_ isn’t what he wants to soundtrack the moment he shuffles from the mortal coil. Then the car shivers to a halt with the front end tucked up snugly against Patrick’s right kneecap (which feels all soft and wobbly) as he stares into the eyes of the perpetrator of his almost vehicular homicide.

It’s a very large car/murder weapon. A very expensive-looking, ridiculously huge car. There is a man behind the wheel and he is just as enormous as the car. He looks _furious._

“Oh,” says Patrick, and his voice trembles as much as his knees. “Oh.”

“Patrick!” shouts the tinny voice on the other end of the phone. “Patrick, what the hell is going on?”

“I just got run over,” Patrick says weakly, because he _did. _The bumper of the large Maserati is pressed to his knee _as he speaks._ “Bloody hell.”

“Did you say _run over—”_

“What the fuck are you playing at, mate?” the driver of the Maserati shouts, instead of something more appropriate. Something like ‘are you okay?’ or ‘terribly sorry for running you over.’ 

Patrick has no idea what he’s playing at. This is because Patrick just brushed whiskers with death. 

“You just ran me over,” he says accusingly. 

“Did not.”

“Did bloody _too!”_

“If I ran you over,” says the driver irritably, “why aren’t you _under_ my car?”

“Well, you _hit_ me,” Patrick says. “You _hit_ me with your car. That’s dangerous driving, that is. I should call the police.”

The Maserati driver looks him over disdainfully. “You,” he says, pointing at Patrick from his open window, “were _shit_ in Soul Punk, you speccy little arsehole.”

Patrick gapes at him. That’s awfully personal. “I…” he says. “I… I…”

“Get off the fucking road!” Mr Maserati roars, underlined by another impressive demonstration of the volume of his car horn.

Patrick clears his throat weakly and hobbles to the opposite side of the road on his overcooked spaghetti legs where he collapses gratefully against a post box. The London traffic roars cheerfully back to life on the fat ribbon of tarmac winding its way through Ladbroke Grove and off towards Kensington. Patrick hopes Mr Maserati gets a parking ticket every day for the rest of his life. 

“Patrick? Are you there? Can you hear me?” says someone in Patrick’s ear. _God probably_, he thinks over his rabbiting heart. Because it would be just his luck to survive the road traffic incident and then have a heart attack in the middle of Notting Hill. 

No, wait, it’s the phone. It’s not a celestial being, but an agent. His agent. His very expensive and agitated agent. His agent, who is shouting at him from the comfort of an office somewhere in Canary Wharf. Somewhere without homicidal Maserati drivers.

“Can I call you back?” Patrick asks faintly. “I’m feeling a little…” and he wobbles slowly down onto the pavement and lets out a long, shaky breath and reminds himself that he didn’t, in fact, actually die. He thumbs the end call button and drops his head into his hands. “Jesus.”

“Are you alright, my love?” asks someone from above. Someone wearing thick brown tights and clutching a tartan shopping trolley. Ah, the lady who handed him to the traffic Gods as a sacrificial offering. Marvellous. 

“I…” he says weakly. “I think I’m okay. I’m — Yes. All the arms and legs and critical bits seem to be attached, still.”

He gives them an experimental wiggle, just to make sure. Nothing falls off. Bonus.

“Smashing!” she says, and then she peers at him, delighted. “Oh! I wasn’t sure from across the road, but it _is_ you!” Patrick makes an agreeable sound and prepares himself to sign her shopping trolley or her handbag or a packet of mints from the bottom of her purse until her lips thin and her mouth puckers. “You really _were_ shit in Soul Punk.”

Patrick wants to argue. There is nothing he wants more than to argue with an elderly lady in a trendy part of West London about his relative relevance. Soul Punk was not ‘shit.’ _He_ was not ‘shit.’ Patrick is an acclaimed and serious actor (pronounced ac-_tohr_). He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and graduated _with honours,_ for God’s sake. His performance in Soul Punk was groundbreaking. It was _revolutionary._

Unfortunately, the viewing figures don’t lie and Soul Punk did embarrassingly poorly by the metrics with which TV shows are measured. According to Empire, it tanked harder than Vinyl, which probably pleased Scorsese at least but didn’t really please Patrick. Or the studio. Patrick didn’t even receive his token BAFTA nomination. Usually, he would scoff at how shatteringly dull he finds awards ceremonies, at how little he wanted to spend another February evening in wool suit and silk tie, waiting for Joanna Lumley to _not _call his name. He imagined, if the nomination didn’t arrive, that he wouldn’t care. 

Then it didn’t. And the snub stung. 

“Thank you,” he mutters darkly. “Thank you very much.”

With that, he struggles to his feet and limps quickly into the nearest cafe, where it smells of coffee and pastry and hipster beard oil rather than exhaust fumes and chilled air and crisp, autumn smog. He wasn’t shit in Soul Punk, he decides, placing his order with the barista. 

He was _vastly_ unappreciated.

***

“Are you okay?” Gabe asks, panicked. “I can get you into The Portland if you’re injured. I can get _Hello_ there to cover it. Did you get his registration number? I can find that bastard and I can _sue.”_

Gabe is paid a lot of money to panic about Patrick’s emotional and physical wellbeing. However, Gabe is paid significantly less than he was before Soul Punk, which means he panics proportionally less than he would have done a year ago. So, with Patrick’s last series belly-flopping its way into the bargain corner of Amazon’s DVD boxsets, Patrick is extended nothing more than a phone call from the worst agent in the best agency for the kind of British actor who is popular in their own way but never quite did a Hiddleston and broke into Hollywood. There’s probably an insult in there, if Patrick could be bothered to find it. 

“Not necessary,” Patrick says, slipping into his seat with his mug and his plate. This is the kind of situation that calls for a restorative croissant. “I’m fine. Just… He called me a speccy little arsehole. That’s a bit rude, isn’t it?”

“Horrific,” Gabe agrees easily. Which is nice, but then he ruins it by continuing. “I mean, you _do_ wear glasses and you _are_ quite short, but the arsehole bit is largely uncalled for.”

“Only largely?” Patrick asks, around a bite of his croissant. “Not totally?”

“Well,” Gabe says. “Maybe if you didn’t keep reducing directors to tears…”

“Right, well then,” Patrick chases his croissant with a mouthful of coffee. “What on earth were you saying, before that man tried to murder me with the vehicular substitute for his no-doubt tiny cock?”

“I was trying to tell you someone called about a role.”

“For me?” Patrick says, and wishes he didn’t have to sound quite so surprised. 

“For you,” Gabe confirms. “They asked for you by name.”

“Oh.” Patrick allows that to sink in for a moment. “Wait, it wasn’t that god awful sci-fi serial, was it? I’ve told you, there’s a reason I’ve never gone Space Commander. I’d look terrible in lycra.”

“No, nothing like that.” Gabe pauses for dramatic effect. As an actor, Patrick finds it lacking in flair. “What do you think of the Way brothers?”

Patrick thinks many things about the Way brothers. He thinks that The Black Parade was a cinematic masterpiece, that no one has pulled together something so nuanced, so wonderfully and beautifully _balanced_ in the history of modern film. They are to Hollywood what Bowie was to modern pop. He both admires them for their talent and despises them for the fact that they will never in a million years consider him for one of their movies. Asking Patrick what he thinks of the Way brothers is irrelevant in the same way that asking him what he thinks of global warming is irrelevant: Patrick has a lot of opinions, but no one really cares what they might be.

Instead of saying this, Patrick keeps it concise. “Uh… Why?”

“That’s who called me!” Gabe declares gleefully. 

“Piss off,” Patrick says. “No they didn’t.”

“Scout’s honour! They called and they asked for you _specifically. _Something about you being perfect for a role in their next project.”

Patrick is immediately struck by a suspicion so deep it requires a mine shaft and specialist equipment for him to find his way to the bottom. He narrows his eyes, even though Gabe can’t see him.

“What’s the catch? Unpaid cameo?”

“It’s not a cameo…”

“But…?”

“It’s a romance.” Gabe says; Patrick groans. “No, don’t be like that, romance movies aren’t what they used to be. Romance movies have _made careers,_ Patrick.”

“I’ve made my career already. Remember when I won a BAFTA?”

“Yes, but no one else does,” Gabe says crisply. Which is true, but he doesn’t have to say it. “That was _five years ago._ Everyone’s forgotten about Infinity on High. You need something new.”

Patrick scowls.

“I don’t need the Way brothers, I don’t need a pity cameo, and I don’t need bloody _rom coms.”_

“You can’t afford to get all arthouse cinema on me, right now,” Gabe points out evenly. “No one is talking about you anymore. The Way brothers are big — they’re _huge_ — they’ve pulled worse careers than yours out of the pan, you know.”

Patrick would not describe his career as ‘in the pan.’ It is, at worst, on the counter top, in proximity to the pan. There’s life in the not-quite-old dog yet. There’s a saying somewhere about having nothing nice to say and saying nothing at all, so he makes a non-committal _hmmph_ sound and takes another bite of his croissant.

“It’s about a pop star who meets a struggling actor,” Gabe says, as if this is tempting.

“Oh, _fantastic!”_ Patrick declares with much false cheerfulness. “Were they hoping I could have art imitate life?”

“I haven’t even told you the best bit,” Gabe says confidently. 

“Go on, my breath is bated.”

“It’s a _gay interest_ film.”

A mouthful of croissant is propelled down Patrick’s windpipe with such ferocious speed that he experiences his second near-death experience of the day. Patrick chokes, audibly and ungracefully. It is only ten in the morning and already he’s almost died twice. 

When he’s finished coughing up chunks of pastry, when he’s mopped his streaming eyes with a rough paper napkin, he brings the phone cautiously back to his ear. 

“I’m sorry,” he says to Gabe’s smug, expectant silence. “I thought you said _gay interest.”_

“That’s exactly what I said,” Gabe confirms. He sounds far more pleased with himself than he ought to. “And it’s not all doom and gloom and homophobia and coming out and AIDS crisis, either. This is just… a regular film. In which the two leads just so happen to be gay. It’s a love story!”

Patrick chews his croissant with cynicism. “Is it _really_ gay, or is it homoerotic subtext again?”

“Oh, it’s _very _gay,” Gabe says smugly. “Has a sex scene. Quite a graphic one, actually. Very avant-garde. But tasteful. They’ll show your arse but not your cock.”

Patrick thinks about this as West London turns gently by the window. No one is making gay interest films yet, not real ones. There’s inferred relationships. There’s implied homoeroticism. There’s cute and quirky coming of age and coming out dramas. There’s nothing about a man in love with another man where the nature of that love is not the main focus of the film. Trust the bloody Ways to steamroll ahead and drag the tide behind them. Patrick bites his lip gently and stirs another sachet of sugar into his coffee. 

“Send me the script,” he says thoughtfully. “Can’t hurt to have a look over it.”

Gabe’s smile is audible, all teeth. 

“They want you as Marcus. I’ll have someone bike it over to you right now.”

***

Two hours later, Patrick calls Gabe back. His hands shake so much that he struggles to navigate his way through his phone book. 

“Starship.”

“Gabe?” Patrick begins, and his voice trembles. His whole body trembles in fact, blood and lymph and tissue vibrating with how very much he wants to be in this movie. “It’s me. It’s, uh, Patrick.”

Gabe makes a sound. An amused little sound. It makes Patrick want to strangle him. “Hello, Patrick,” he says jovially. “How can I help you?”

“I have to be in this film,” Patrick says desperately. “I _need_ to be in this film. This isn’t up for negotiation.”

“Ooh, he’s feisty when he’s motivated.”

“Very funny.” Patrick blinks, breathes, and recalibrates. “Do they want me to read? I can fly out whenever they like. I can go _today_ if they need me to.”

“Jesus,” Gabe says. “You’re really into this script, aren’t you?”

“It’s… lovely,” Patrick says quietly, because it is. 

Oh, it is. It’s the loveliest thing he’s read in years. He started to read in his kitchen, rushed, barely skimming the lines as he listened to Radio 4 in the background and prepared Turkish coffee and talked to his dog. And then. And then by page 12, he realized he was no longer listening to Radio 4, or making coffee, or talking to Penny. He realized he was barely _breathing. _So, he moved to his living room where he could sit in his armchair and look over the park and really focus, and he went back to the start, and over pages and pages of courier font, Patrick fell hopelessly in love. 

To act in this film, to see all that he is in the character on the page, would be the highlight of his career. Marcus is the chance to be _himself: _all gay, and proud, and unconcerned, unencumbered by the need to kiss beautiful women or to exert toxic male heterosexuality. Excitement quivers low in his chest. 

Patrick needs to be in this movie — no, this _film_ — like he needs to breathe. Like he needs his heart to beat. 

“Well, this is _wonderful_ news, I’ll make some calls, arrange a meeting.”

“Do they have any ideas about the other role? Louis?” Patrick asks breathlessly. There are so many possibilities. 

“I think they had... _someone _in mind, yes,” Gabe says. Patrick is too excited to truly hear the note of caution. 

“I have some suggestions, if anyone’s interested,” he ploughs on, because he is hopelessly thrilled about this role and he has no idea how to contain the rushing flood of words and want, and words about want that swell in his throat and rush his teeth. “Russell Tovey would be _fantastic, _and I mean, can you imagine? _Two_ openly gay actors finally getting their teeth into roles like this? God, this could be fucking _groundbreaking. _They would be talking about this for years!”

“Patrick,” Gabe says. 

“It’s the kind of thing the Academy eats with a _spoon,_ Gabriel, with a fucking _spoon.”_

“Patrick.”

“But if they don’t want to go all Queer as Folk, there are _options_. I’ve always fancied working with David Tennant. Or maybe good old Ewan, he’s never been afraid to—”

“Patrick!”

Patrick pauses, bewildered. There are no studio lights. He is in his apartment, the script swimming gently as he tries to focus. “Yes?” he says, dazed. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s just… They have someone in mind already,” Gabe says. “It’s a studio decision, you know?”

Patrick watches the street below, the way the brisk autumn breeze whisks leaves along the pavement, dressed in shades of orange and gold but mostly brown. He wants Gabe to sound excited again, the hesitation makes him nervous and makes his thigh bounce uncontrollably. Patrick bites his thumb nail and twists it sharply between his teeth. Gabe continues to breathe, staticky, down the line and Patrick waits and waits. Finally, unable to stand it, Patrick clears his throat. 

“So?” he asks. “Who is it?”

Gabe says, “Please don’t be upset.”

So Patrick knows immediately that he is about to be _very_ upset and he thinks _Oh God, please don’t let him say Efron, I think I’ll _die_ if he says Efron._ But Patrick doesn’t say any of that out loud because acting is a peculiar place where no one is allowed to say anything negative about anyone else, lest it all descend into spats on Twitter and articles in the Daily Mail. Patrick can think of nothing worse than acting this — the role of a lifetime — opposite someone as banal and unchallenging as Zac Efron. 

It slips out, because Patrick can’t hold it back: “Oh God, it’s not Zac bloody Efron, is it?”

Gabe continues carefully.

“It’s Pete Wentz.”

“Oh, _bollocks,”_ says Patrick.

Okay, well. It turns out, Patrick was wrong. It can get so much worse. 


	2. Chapter 2

Pete didn’t want to read for the fucking role in the first place.

It’s not that he necessarily has an issue with reading in general. Like, reading _ scripts, _ not just _ reading. _ Despite what Perez Hilton says about him, he can actually _ read. _ But this; hauled across the continent on a red eye flight to a third floor walk up in a bad part of New Jersey (as if there are _ good _ parts of New Jersey) to read a part he’s not even sure he wants? He’s not supposed to do _ this. _It’s why he employs an agent in the first place. 

Hollywood works in a particular way: The screenwriters and the directors and the producers create a Product. It is then the role of the Talent to market and sell that Product. The Talent does not have to be talented, but it does have to be visually appealing to large numbers of Middle America movie-goers. Hollywood has nothing to do with talent — that died with James Dean in a Porsche 550 on the 46 back in 1955 — which suits Pete, since he knows he isn’t _ actually _talented. In exchange for sales, the Talent receives payment, known colloquially as the Quote. The more efficient the salesman, the higher the quote and Pete Wentz is ruthlessly efficient at what he does. 

Pete is king of romantic comedies, which is an uninspiring principality to rule. But he still commands a seven-figure quote which allows him to do things he _ does _ find interesting like buying and running nightclubs in and around Los Angeles and going to exclusive parties in the hills that swell gently behind Chateau Marmont. Or hanging out in the pool in the grounds of the fabulous house he owns in those very same hills with a number of not-unattractive and deeply ambitious starlets. Girls who will do... if not _ anything _ to appear on his arm, then at least they’ll do _ a lot of things _if it means there’s a chance of a couple of column inches in US Weekly. 

Apparently, his place in the chick flick aristocracy does not excuse him from reading for the Ways. So, he trudges up the third staircase in this grey, utilitarian block clutching a paper cup from the Greek diner across the street because the Ways select their east coast premises based on ridiculous things, like moody Tarantino aesthetic, and not sensible things, like geographical proximity to Pacific north-western coffee chains. He sucks down a mouthful of scalding, bitter coffee and glares at the door in front of him. 

_ “Jersey?” _ he says to Andy, who started life as his best friend back in Chicago and somehow became his PA when he discovered that he didn’t really _ like _ PAs, but he _ did _ really like Andy. “Who the fuck _ even?” _

“You’re intimidated,” says Andy, thoroughly unintimidated in his North Face jacket and shorts.

Pete, who is _ very _ intimidated because the dude they’re screen testing him with, this capital A Actor, has won an Olivier for Most Promising Performer and has glowing write-ups in Empire for obscure indie movies that no one has seen but everyone talks about, spits out, “By _ what? _ So he has an accent. Big fucking deal.”

“Because he’s good,” Andy points out calmly. “And because you’re in a rut and you’ve forgotten that you can be good, too. When you’re not doing this Mark Wahlberg, cookie cutter, act by numbers bullshit, anyway.”

_What if I’m not,_ Pete thinks, hysterically, _what if this is the best I’m ever going to be and this guy — this barely-known-outside-of-the-UK _guy _gets the role and I don’t?_ He clears his throat, says, “Why am I even here?”

“In the cosmic sense?” Andy drawls.

“No, in the literal sense,” says Pete. “The fucking _ Way brothers, _dude.”

Andy shrugs. “You said it yourself — the studio needs a face.” 

Pete winces. “This better be worth it.”

“Well, they did ask for you,” Andy says with a shrug. “They probably think you’re at least halfway competent if they flew you out here.”

“Halfway competent?” Pete repeats, amused. “That’s probably the nicest review anyone’s given of any of my performance since Black Cards.”

“You were shitty in Black Cards, too,” Andy says honestly and Pete laughs, because he was. He was _ so _shitty in Black Cards. He was just lucky enough to star alongside people who were even worse. Respectable by association.

“This is ridiculous.” Pete sighs, not at Andy but at the Ways, even though Andy is right beside him and the Ways are ensconced behind their scuffed up door, probably sipping Coffee Project coffee at their Parnian desks and this, _ this, _ is why Pete hates the movie industry.

Not enough to walk away from it. That, truly, would be ridiculous.

“Well, we’re not going to find out if we don’t go inside,” Andy says, stoic and pragmatic as always. 

Pete raps on the door. God, the fucking Ways can suck his dick. 

The door is answered by a skinny guy with long legs and pale Jersey arms and thin wrists. His shirt is Cafe Press and his watch is Tag Heuer and he blinks at Pete from behind white blocky glasses. He passes a hand through his hair which is less intentionally tousled and more actual bed head. His heavy eyes slide open and shut, his mouth twisted a little. He is Mikey Way and he won an Oscar last year. 

“You must be Pete,” he says sleepily, like _ he’s _the one who just stepped off a plane. 

There’s a Straw Dogs poster on the wall behind him. As the kind of man who keeps his awards and accolades and rare positive reviews in a custom made display case in the entrance hall of his house, Pete begins to feel self conscious. Pete begins to feel _ small. _

Pete’s smile is tight, professional, he holds out a hand. “And you must be Michael Way.”

“Please, call me Mikey,” says Mikey, shaking Pete’s hand and pushing a stacked river of takeout menus away from the door with his toe. “Way rhymes with Bay and that’s not a comparison I want anyone to make.”

Cute. Pete follows him across an office littered with piles of paper and coffee cups just like the one Pete is holding. So much for Coffee Project. A dark-eyed receptionist smiles at him from behind her Ikea desk. She’s cute and Pete smiles back, winks, and for a moment or two he isn’t thinking about reading, isn’t thinking about meeting — 

“Guys, this is Pete. Pete, you know my brother Gerard, right?” Pete shakes hands and flashes his best, most enigmatic smile and says things like ‘I really admire your work,’ which is easy to say because who _ doesn’t _ admire the Way brothers? He does not remove his sunglasses, though. “And this is Patrick. Patrick Stump.”

And, oh. Hello. This is the infamous method actor. The man who has reduced directors to tears and broken sets on the first day of filming. He leans up against a bookshelf crammed with interesting-looking books about interesting-sounding topics, his hands shoved into the pockets of his skinny jeans. He’s wearing too many layers — t-shirt, flannel shirt, hoodie, denim jacket — and his glasses have slipped down his nose. He is short, noticeably so, which is surprising given the low, low average height of the average actor but he carries himself like a man who is much, much bigger. He has a plump and decadent lower lip that Pete forces himself not to dwell on. Overwhelmingly, Pete is relieved: Pete was imagining someone more intimidating. Pete was imagining someone _ taller. _

The look Patrick gives Pete is cool, inscrutable. Patrick does not look like the kind of man who displays his awards. Like the Ways, he probably decorates his walls with worthy art and quirky posters of obscure foreign films. Pete dislikes that about him — that he looks _ cooler _ than Pete — almost as much as he admires him for his acting.

Patrick smiles with his mouth but not his eyes. He holds out a pale, perfectly manicured hand and says, in this soft, impossibly _ British _tenor, “Nice to meet you.”

No one in the history of recorded meetings has looked less pleased to meet another person. There have been warmer greetings at the Concordia Antarctic research facility. Pete deflates. He wipes his slightly sweaty palm surreptitiously against the lining of his coat pocket and takes Patrick’s hand. It’s cool, dry, a tiny callus over the joint of his thumb. Behind his glasses, Patrick’s eyes are as flat and grey as the Atlantic and, like the ocean, Pete imagines something dangerous lurks beneath. 

“Patrick flew out from London yesterday,” Gerard informs them as a collective, although Patrick presumably already knows, and Pete nods, like this is useful insider information. “Sorry to haul the both of you all this way, but we really need to see how you interact together before we can hammer anything down. It can get crazy weird shooting sex scenes, just need to make sure that’s going to work, you know? We want to see some chemistry.”

“Right,” says Pete, who has shot a lot of sex scenes with some of the most beautiful women in Hollywood.

And, “Of course,” murmurs Patrick, who… has not. 

“Hi,” Pete says, nerves curling hot in his belly as he looks at Patrick. He moves forward clumsily, tripping over his own feet. “I loved Infinity on High. You were fucking incredible, man.”

Pete waits expectantly, because this is the part where Patrick is supposed to tell Pete that he’s seen him in something and admires him, too. 

“Thank you, I’m fond of that one,” Patrick says instead and Pete feels a pigeonhole start to form. Which is immediately _ crammed _with fucking pigeon when Patrick continues. “Sometimes the more organic works are just that more rewarding, don’t you think? I can’t imagine being forced into that dreadful Hollywood dreck over and over again, like some kind of cinematic Groundhog Day.”

“Right,” Pete nods fervently and feels his smile begin to slip because that’s definitely a description of his career. “Well, that’s what we’re here for, huh?” 

Patrick raises an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

Pete begins to babble uncontrollably and it’s not that he thinks anything that he’s saying is true but he can’t stop it. He is a rabbit, caught in the headlights of his own vacuous crap.

“You know,” he says. “I mean, it worked for Heath, right? Everyone takes you seriously when you do that shit. Go gay for pay and grab the Oscar, am I right?”

Patrick’s smile doesn’t waver. He raises the other eyebrow.

_ “I’m _gay,” he says, and, like a black hole, the room is devoid of oxygen.

Pete’s nervous system calcifies. He cannot stop smiling because his face has frozen. He may never move again. He experiences an embarrassment so acute that he surpasses blushing and moves directly to combustion. His mouth opens and closes and no sound comes out and God, _ God, _ the only possibility for escape right now is immediate death. Pete would give both of his testicles in exchange for a well-timed lightning bolt.

“I am _ so _sorry,” he mutters. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Not at all,” Patrick says heartily. “I do hope my sexuality can assist your career.”

Wikipedia is a thing that exists. Wikipedia is a _ thing _ that _ exists _ and it probably contains useful information like the known homosexuality of popular British television actors. There is no God, or They are cruel and unjust and there is no way — no _ possible way _ — that Pete is ever going to stop cringing over this. 

“Look, I didn’t mean…” Pete trails off. He _ did _ mean, he’s just embarrassed he was called out about it. “I’m an idiot,” he says instead and Patrick hums like he agrees and Gerard begins messing with the cameras and there still isn’t a convenient hole in the ground to swallow Pete whole. “Jesus Christ.”

Then Patrick says, politely and as an afterthought, “I saw you in Black Cards, by the way. Very good. Very... interesting.” He says ‘interesting’ like he wants to say ‘awful.’

Immediately, Pete is defensive: “Yeah, I mean. Two Golden Globes, you know?” 

He won’t mention that both of those awards had nothing to do with him. 

“Best original soundtrack and best comedy screenplay, wasn’t it?” Patrick says, smiling faintly.

It is the kind of information that can be found on Black Cards Wiki page and Patrick is the kind of asshole who _ does _ do his homework. 

“Bebe was… tough,” Pete shrugs. “But we can’t pick our co-stars, am I right?”

Patrick looks him up and down slowly. “No,” he says. “No, we cannot.”

And fuck this. Pete walked into this room wanting to _ like _ this asshole. Despite the stories Pete’s heard, he wanted to _ respect _ him in the universally accepted ways that Hollywood colleagues can respect one another. There is a small and unacknowledged part of Pete’s deeply hidden self that wanted to _ impress _ Patrick Stump. Instead, he worries he may actually murder him before this screen test is over. There is no way he can survive a whole shoot with him. That is cruel and unusual punishment. There are _ amendments _ that forbid it. 

“The studio selected me,” Pete says, his face hot. “If you have a problem with that, take it up with Universal.”

“Oh really?” Patrick raises both eyebrows once more. _ “I _heard they wanted Hemsworth, but he was busy.”

Pete heard that rumour, too.

“I make money,” Pete says defensively. 

“I’m sure you do,” Patrick smiles, very politely. 

Gerard and Mikey watch the whole thing like this is the grand slam, their eyes bouncing back and forth. Pete has never felt a stronger urge to kick a co-star in the crotch. 

“Shall we get started?” Gerard asks sunnily and Pete considers laughing in his face. He can’t act in a romantic scene with this douchebag. There are limits. There is a point where credible believability is stretched beyond all reasonableness and this is it: a man like Pete — like Louis in the script — would not be involved with an idiot like Patrick. 

“I…” Pete begins, intending to follow it up with _ made a mistake. _ He looks around the room and finds himself staring at the Straw Dogs poster, and no. No. He will not walk out of this room. Walking out of this room is an admission that he will never make his own Straw Dogs. Pete will not allow this smirking creature to ruin his one shot at escaping the endless monotony of yet another romantic comedy. There are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio etc etc, which Patrick would like because he’s the kind of asshole who places more weight on Shakespeare than JJ Abrams. “I’m sorry,” he says again, humbly. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Gerard shuffles the script on his desk and glances up. “I thought maybe scene eight? The morning after?”

“We agreed scene two,” Patrick says defensively. “I didn’t study scene eight.”

Pete’s smile is catlike and sharp. “Oh, did you rehearse a lot? That sucks.”

“Did you _ not?” _ Patrick snaps.

Pete flexes his shoulders and slips off his sunnies and flips idly through the script he thumbed through on the flight. “I find it’s so much more _ organic _ if I don’t memorize the scene,” he smiles cheerfully and widely and Patrick looks like he may be imagining beating him to death with the script. “Don’t you?”

This is why the Way brothers are considered fucking geniuses. Scene eight is an argument, prickly with tension. It is the _ perfect _ scene for the two of them to run through right now. Pete won’t need to fake his irritation: he is the most irritated he has been in his life. He is probably the most irritated person in the state of New Jersey. 

Patrick makes a noise that Pete has not heard an actor make before. He snatches his script from the table and stalks in front of the cameras and rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck first one way and then the other. He closes his eyes and moves his lips and Pete thinks _ that’s it asshole, overcompensate. _ Then something happens that Pete does not understand. Patrick changes. And, when he opens his impossible blue grey eyes, Patrick is no longer there.

“Fuck,” he says, and his _ accent _ has gone. His voice is flat, Midwestern, just like Pete’s.

He delivers his first line before Pete has the chance to stagger into shot beside him, serves it crisply across the set like Serena Williams. The Way brothers hum with excitement and Pete decides he could watch this man act for hours. He could watch him for a lifetime. He is astonishing. He is… _ enchanting. _

“Pete,” Gerard says. “When you’re ready?”

Pete drops his script and messes up his first line, but it doesn’t matter because Patrick is _ perfect _ and he fires back, adapts without missing a beat. They fall into fighting as easily as breathing and Pete feels a place inside of himself unlock. He is no longer Pete Wentz, leading man, he is Louis and he is _ furious _ with this maddening, loveable man. 

Pete was worried, before he walked in here. He gave up on sleep last night because all he could think when he closed his eyes was that this would be too much. Pete is not averse to situational homosexuality, provided no one is nearby with a camera, but it’s another thing entirely to fall in love with a man _ convincingly _ on film. Patrick makes it so easy. Easier than allowing his heart to beat. Pete wears this role less like a crown and more like a well-loved shirt. He _ adores _ this role. 

Patrick stops, his breath warm against Pete’s mouth and Pete blinks, shivers, and drops back into his own skin. He removes his curled fist from the placket of Patrick’s denim jacket. Patrick lets go of Pete’s belt buckle. Louis wants Marcus to kiss him. Pete reminds himself that he is not Louis, he breathes deeply. Pete has never acted like that in his _ life. _ He cannot stop grinning and Patrick’s own mouth quirks, quick, at the corners. His only regret is that this scene will never make it into the film, that it’s destined to join the many folders of test footage stored in extensive and expensive hard drives in this office, or an office in Los Angeles and no one will _ see _ the raw _ magic _ of it. 

He tucks his hands into the pockets of his tight jeans. He shakes like he’s coming down from a hit of something controlled. His skin itches and Pete is aware of each cell, each fine hair prickling at the nape of his neck. There is no way that everyone else in the room doesn’t feel the way Pete feels. 

“Very good,” Gerard murmurs, his face impossibly calm and still. 

“We’ll be in touch,” Mikey says, his pale arms wrapped around his body. 

Pete is unschmoozed but delighted. He falls from the room on light feet. 

“That went well,” he says to Patrick. “Hey, do you feel like grabbing some brunch? Get to know each other a little before we… well, before we’re doing this for real.”

Patrick’s smile is small and measured precisely. He doesn’t show his teeth. He pauses, cocks his head and looks out across the Atlantic. Pete thinks it matches his eyes. 

“I don’t have to socialise with you to act with you,” he says eventually and Pete feels stupid, childlike. _ “If _they cast us together, I’ll see you at rehearsals.”

“Come on, man. You don’t have to—”

“I’ll get you out of rom com purgatory,” Patrick says bluntly. “But I _ won’t _ be your token homosexual, bagels-at-Jerry’s-on-Saturday-morning, nights-drinking-microbrew, gay best friend. We can act together, you’ll get your fucking _ gay for pay_.” He presses a finger into the centre of Pete’s chest and leans close. “But stay away from me when we’re not on set.”

“Yeah?” Pete says, vicious. “And what if they don’t cast _ you? _ What if they get someone famous? Then what?”

_ “I’ve _ signed a pre-production, have you?” Patrick asks. Pete has not been asked to sign anything. His fists ball and he tilts his chin and Patrick fucking _ laughs _ at him. “I thought so. They _ want _ me. They’ll _ tolerate _ you. Go back to L.A. and let them cast a real actor, let my community get the film they deserve.”

That hurts. Silently, Pete watches him turn and slip into a waiting car and stare stoically out of the window furthest from Pete.

“That went well,” Andy says flatly.

Pete hopes the car will crash on the way to the airport, that Patrick’s plane will fall out of the sky somewhere over the Atlantic. Then they can cast someone reasonable and Pete can make his gateway movie and his career can progress the way it’s supposed to without easily offended method actors. The car turns a corner and disappears and Patrick is on his way back to England and Pete’s mouth throbs like Patrick punched him and his knuckles ache like he returned the blow. 

“Dick,” he mutters vehemently, and he means himself and Patrick both. “What a fucking asshole.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [I can be found on Tumblr here](https://sn1tchesandtalkers.tumblr.com/), drop by for FOB, fic, and feminism :)


	3. Chapter 3

Patrick retreats to London to lick his wounds and, very solemnly, does not think about Pete Wentz.

Which works for, at best, two minutes at a stretch and then Patrick — walking down Oxford Street, standing in the queue in Starbucks — will grimace, warm with irritation at the memory of Pete’s voice, Pete’s face, Pete’s attitude problem. Then, Patrick will sternly remind himself that he is _not_ thinking about Pete Wentz – which he thinks qualifies as thinking about Pete Wentz – and then he’s thinking about Pete Wentz again and _God._ He may have to lobotomize himself with a wooden coffee stirrer if this carries on any longer.

Gabe tells him that Pete signed a contract, which pleases Patrick not at all. There are _coffee tables _that wish they were as wooden as Pete Wentz. There are actual fucking _trees._ So, he broods and he sulks and he avoids all social invitations in favour of sitting in his living room, thinking about how much he doesn’t want to think about Pete Wentz. 

The problem is that Patrick has very little to do but prepare for the role. Autumn is a notoriously quiet time for the filming of BBC dramas, particularly since they moved the whole shooting match to Manchester and southern luvvies find the cold and pervasive damp intolerable. Patrick mopes around his house and goes to the gym and drinks miserable protein drinks and jogs with Penny in Regent’s Park where he’s asked for autographs by women who loved him in Infinity on High and he does not _intentionally_ think about Pete Wentz.

Which doesn’t work. But at least he can pretend until Gabe sends a text saying ‘package for you,’ and then a courier arrives and hands Patrick a neat FedEx box labelled with sprawling, scratchy handwriting.

_FAO P Stump,_ it says ominously, _C/O Starship, Lanterns Way, London._ There is an American handling stamp beneath the label. Patrick can’t think of a single American citizen who might want to send him boxes in the post.

While Patrick wonders idly who might be sending him packages courtesy of his agent, he begins to tear away the packing tape with cheery nonchalance. Then he thinks about anthrax and shoves it sharply to the far end of the kitchen worktop. Which is where it stays until he gets tired of eyeing it suspiciously and it refuses to explode and, when he grabs his phone and searches _How to tell if someone has sent anthrax through the post, _Google responds with the technological equivalent of a shrug. So, he carefully opens the package with kitchen scissors and a dishcloth wrapped over his mouth and nose, just in case.

There is no anthrax. Which is a relief. There are packing peanuts, of course, and a handwritten note, and a pristine pressing of Space Oddity folded in layers and layers of thin packing plastic, but there are no chemical compounds at all. Patrick stares at the vinyl. He turns it over in his hands and slides it carefully from the sleeve and realizes it’s genuine. Then he shoves it back, quickly, before the sweat on his fingers can damage the surface. He fishes out the note.

_i’m sorry,_ it reads, in the same scrawl as the address label, _i fucked up and i want to make it right. meet me for a drink sometime? pw_

And just like that, Patrick is thinking about Pete Fucking Wentz, _again. _About the idiocy of inviting someone for a drink when they live on opposite sides, not of the city, but of the actual _Earth._ As though Pete can manipulate the space-time continuum. As though Patrick is going to find himself in West Hollywood and at a loose end when he lives in West _London_ and has a life and friends. As though one of them is going to demand 1.21 Gigawatts and make the leap. Patrick thinks about Pete and he seethes and he definitely does not find the gesture charming _at all._

It’s unfair that someone he has spent half an hour with – _absolute tops – _should have such an aggressive hold on his thoughts. As an actor, Patrick has handed over so much of himself to the public: his privacy, his (non-existent) love life, his childhood photographs, and favourite food, film, book. He thought he could at least retain his _thoughts. _His love for Bowie is not something he’s kept a secret – the refusal to conform to the sexual binary, the lyricism, the music, the _panache!_ – but he thought it would be a secret _from Pete._

He sighs and showers and sets the vinyl onto his turntable but doesn’t lower the needle. He’s still thinking about Pete but, for some reason, he’s thinking that Pete has the most striking eyes Patrick’s ever seen. This is a ridiculous thought, so he thinks about replying to Pete’s note, instead. Clearly, a reply is the polite thing to do but Patrick isn’t feeling polite and he lies on his couch, hair wet and soaking into the fabric as he flips through Netflix until he comes across one of Pete’s movies – _obviously _– and it looks terrible – _obviously _– and Patrick switches it on and lies back and watches Pete’s face and striking eyes.

It’s not that he expected the movie to be good. Truly, he did not. But he didn’t expect it to be quite this _bad._ Pete couldn’t act his way out of a one-sided argument if his life depended on it. Mila Kunis grimaces as he oozes over her and Patrick empathises on all counts and levels. Patrick alternates between shaking his head and closing his eyes and closing his eyes _and_ shaking his head. There is no way he can carry this idiot through two hours of the most delicate writing he’s ever read. There is probably an EU convention that prevents him from trying. Perhaps the one about cruel and inhuman treatment. 

Finally, Patrick caves and hits mute. He stares at his ceiling and asks a God he doesn’t believe in what it is he’s done in this or a past life to deserve Pete as his romantic lead. It’s probably all of the sodomy. With a huff, he rolls to his feet and switches on his turntable, lowering the needle to the record and letting it play.

He finds it improves things dramatically.

Without Pete’s voice, with Bowie’s voice instead, Pete is almost attractive. Patrick squints, tips his head to the side and pushes his glasses up his nose and studies Pete’s profile: those cheekbones, that mouth. He is lying to himself. Pete is arrogantly, endlessly, _obnoxiously_ fucking handsome and Patrick is hopelessly, embarrassingly, _obnoxiously_ hard under his towel.

The important thing is, he tells himself as he lies back on his couch, loosening the knot at his waist and exposing himself to the empty air of his house, the important thing _is_ that this is nothing more than role preparation. Patrick won’t be Patrick, he’ll be Marcus, and Marcus is hopelessly in lust with someone named Louis, who will wear Pete’s face like – like John Travolta in Face Off. Which isn’t a sexy comparison. But it’s important, he thinks, licking his palm and reaching down to where his cock is stiff and pink, _very important,_ that he convincingly portrays sexual attraction to Louis. To Pete. This is a rehearsal. This is professional. This is not Patrick Stump preparing to masturbate over the image of Pete’s smile wrapped around his cock.

Patrick’s dick still throbs like it didn’t get the memo. He sweats and bites his lip. He holds his erection and squeezes fractionally and there’s still time for him to _not_ do this. His hips squirm delighted, seeking the friction of his palm and his cock catches, pulses, chafes. Pete’s mouth is moving on screen and his eyes are huge and liquid as melted copper and Bowie sings on and on. Patrick’s hand is moving and he has done this before — _obviously_ — but he’s never fucked himself thinking of _Pete Wentz. _He chases each electric tingle, his whole body a languid throb from his heart to his dick to his dizzy brain.

Academically, Patrick knows how movie sex works. He knows that it’s the unsexiest thing imaginable. That there are directors and camera operatives and a script supervisor and a make-up artist just out of shot waiting to shout something delightful like “Could you thrust a little more _angrily?” _or “I want you to take her like she’s the last reduced cream cake on the shelf,” or, and this may just be his own personal experience, “That’s fantastic, but we can see your testicles.” He knows all of this, but here he is, stroking himself off to the muscular way Pete’s back flexes as he pulls off his shirt. 

Pete’s mouth quirks, smiles, he’s fake-fucking Mila on the screen and this is the most natural he’s looked since the movie began. Her head is thrown back and it’s not in shot but her toes are probably curled into the sheets and Pete – sweaty, breathless – kisses her throat like he means it with his flat, wide mouth. He’s so handsome that Patrick could cry with it. Patrick comes quick, explosive, because it’s been too long since he’s touched himself and there’s no one else to do it for him. He comes watching Pete. He comes so hard he whites out, goes momentarily deaf and there’s nothing but ringing in his ears and sticky pearl on his belly. 

He comes down quickly. It no longer feels like a brilliant character exercise. He regrets it before his tongue stops tingling.

So, it turns out that he’s not just thinking about Pete Wentz, he’s masturbating over him and nurturing the early stages of a tragic, Straight Boy crush. 

Fucking brilliant.

***

Setting aside the regrettable incident with the forgettable rom-com and Patrick’s stupid hand on his unforgivably stupid penis, he resigns himself to the inevitability of Pete. There is… a certain relief in acceptance. Accepting it is like giving in to the warm embrace of hypothermic shock. Patrick is, emotionally-speaking, lying down in a snow drift and waiting to die.

Patrick envies Pete. He does. He envies the simplistic way in which he can order his life. Pete knows that hooking up leads to dating leads to moving in leads to marriage leads to child leads to inevitable Hollywood divorce. (Again.) Pete can flirt openly. Patrick is jealous of Pete’s easy heterosexuality when Patrick’s life has been so needlessly complicated since he sat down in front of a journalist in 2006 and answered a question about an ongoing rumour concerning him and a decidedly female co-star. Patrick looked the journalist in the eye without a hint of shame or regret and said, “I’m gay, actually.”

And his agent dropped him before the words made it into print. 

Men like Pete get to talk about ‘gay for pay’ while Patrick lives the low points every single day, entirely for free. His sexuality is something that no one talks about, unless it’s the time of year when Argos slaps a pride flag on their television adverts and then, suddenly, he’s rolled out as a talking head on every talk show, quiz show and Radio 4 programme to talk about his ‘experience’ as a gay man. No one, as far as he’s aware, has ever asked a straight man to talk about his experiences in the simple world of heteronormativity. 

He knows that the BBC keep him around to promote their image of tolerance and liberalism. He knows, academically, that none of this is Pete’s fault directly. But it _is_ Pete’s fault that he believes he has any reason, any _right,_ to play a bisexual man like Louis when no one will sneer at him for doing something as outrageous as holding hands with his partner in public. 

It doesn’t help that their professional relationship has, in Patrick’s mind at least, begun to resemble the famous drowning scene in Titanic. Patrick is Jack and Pete is Rose and that door is Patrick’s credibility and Pete is going to shove him off it to save himself. The cinematic parallel is pleasing for an actor. The reality of the repercussions, less so. 

Gabe throws a leaving party two days before Patrick is set to fly out to LAX. Patrick attends because he has nothing better to do and, also, he ran down the contents of his fridge freezer and therefore has nothing better to _eat._ The stops are officially pulled out in a private dinner party room at the Ritz and Patrick is charmed by the effort. This almost definitely means he’s tipped to pick up a couple of awards for this. 

He is less charmed when Will Beckett — screenwriter, hopeless flirt, unapologetically American and Gabe’s husband — leans over the scallops and says, “I hear Pete Wentz sent you a gift.”

Patrick chokes on his entrée. “Who told you that?” he wheezes.

Will waves his fork towards Gabe. “My husband is a gossip,” he grins and Gabe beams from the far end of the table and raises his glass.

“The best in the business,” Gabe declares. Which is a lie. He’s not the best anything in any business. 

“How does Gabe know that?” Patrick growls, spearing a scallop darkly. “That package was unopened.”

“Darling, I have little birds everywhere. They tell me _very _interesting things.”

Patrick smiles without sincerity. “Did they tell you I can find another agent?”

“If anyone’s interested,” Gabe says — and Patrick, for one, is not interested. “I expect an invitation to your wedding. I practically orchestrated the whole thing.”

“I wouldn’t waste the ink on the civil partnership form,” Patrick mutters into his wine glass. “I do not _like _Pete Wentz. I am not relishing the idea of spending _time _with Pete Wentz. I don't even want to _talk _to Pete Wentz.”

Will nods at Patrick’s vibrating phone on the table top which, somehow, displays the name Pete Wentz. “I can see that,” he says drily. “But it looks like he wants to talk to you.”

Before Patrick can finish wondering how Pete a) obtained his number and b) how Pete’s number is stored in his phone, Gabe adds another reason to the many numbered list of reasons that Patrick may have to kill him by saying, “I thought it would be a brilliant idea for you two to stay in touch. Added him to your address book last week, mate.”

“You know it’s really unsettling when you try to talk like a Brit,” Patrick tells him as the phone continues to buzz. “Your vocabulary says Hampshire but your vowels say Queens. I’m ignoring his call, by the way.”

He says this while reaching for his phone and thumbing the accept button. Gabe grins knowingly from the other side of the table and says, “I can see that,” and Patrick glares at him murderously. He leaves the room and is so annoyed, he doesn’t bother to excuse himself. That’ll show them.

“Stump,” he says briskly, hovering in the hall between two beautiful crystal chandeliers. 

There’s a confused pause. “I mean, maybe when it’s cold?” Pete says. “But when it’s warm, it’s totally fine. Above average, even. Almost, anyway. Look, I have, like, nothing to be ashamed of, you know?”

“Pardon?” Patrick says, bewildered. “I — It’s Patrick. Patrick _Stump.”_

“Seriously?” Pete replies. _“That’s_ how you greet people when you answer the phone?” And Patrick’s cheeks heat, the gilt-edged mirror across the hallway reflecting a face the same colour as one of those open-topped tourist buses. “Wow, I thought you were talking about my—”

And now Patrick can’t stop thinking about Pete’s prick, like Pete just shoved his conversational, dick-shaped bishop to checkmate. False analogy. _All_ bishops are vaguely dick-shaped.

“My mum recites her telephone number when she answers the phone,” Patrick cuts Pete off, aware that he’s babbling, that he’s allowing himself to think about what happened the last time he heard Pete’s voice, concerned that Pete might know, might guess. “Do you know why anyone might do that? They know the number. They just dialled it.”

“Sounds totally British,” Pete drawls. Then, without pausing, he carries on. “Did you get my gift?”

Patrick, a terrible person, thinks about lying. 

Patrick, a terrible liar, tells the truth.

“I did. Thank you. It was… very thoughtful,” he says stiffly. 

He should stop thinking about things being stiff, because it’s making him think about _other_ things that have recently been stiff. What if Pete can read minds? It seems unlikely, since Pete can’t even read _lines_, but it's terrifying enough that Patrick considers hurling himself headfirst into the mirror rather than continuing this conversation. 

“You didn’t have it already?” Pete prompts. “Because I can swap it out. I have, like, a ton of vinyl, so if there’s anything else you’re into, maybe I can get it for you.”

Patrick pauses. Patrick gapes. Patrick looks in the mirror and realises that the face he’s pulling is not attractive in the slightest. 

“You — That was _your_ record?” he says breathlessly. Somehow this is worse than if Pete had bought it, uneducated, standing in the middle of Amoeba Records and harassing the sales staff for information on the best one to buy. But it came from Pete’s personal collection, which means Pete likes Bowie, which means Pete has enough taste to _appreciate _Bowie. “You like Bowie? _You?”_

“I _love _Bowie,” Pete corrects him. Patrick is so astonished that he can’t think of a witty rejoinder. “I heard you love him, too. And I wanted to say sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said, and I shouldn’t have been a dick to you. It’s not your fault you’re stuck with me.”

“No, that’s not exactly…” Patrick murmurs, then stops, before he says something unforgivably rude.

“It’s okay,” Pete assures him. “You can say it. I’ve had, like, fifteen years to get used to the fact that I can’t act. You’re playing the worst game of catch up ever invented.”

“Oh, no, I knew you were bad all along,” Patrick blurts out then pauses, winces, and wonders if he’s going to require a surgeon to remove his foot from his mouth. “I mean — Objectively speaking.”

Pete laughs, as though being told he is a horrible actor is something he hears every day. But then, Pete _is_ a horrible actor and he refuses to stop making movies so he probably _does_ hear it every day. “Cold,” he says carelessly. “But like, can we start over? I promise I’m not really a huge asshole. Not much, anyway.”

“I’m sorry I was rude,” Patrick begins, after a pause. “And really, thank you very much for the vinyl, it was a nice gesture.”

“It’s fine,” Pete says. “Honestly, I was the bigger dick, for sure. So, you get in Tuesday, right? I was thinking I could show you the sights. Maybe take you out for dinner or something?”

God, there are door to door evangelists who take hints better than this guy. 

Patrick frowns. “That’s a generous offer, but I think it’s going to undermine the authenticity of our performance if we have these friendly little conversations. Don’t you?”

Pete’s pause is brief, hurt. “Uh, sure,” he says. “Like, whatever you want, dude. Just… So you’re clear? This is, like, the _least_ friendly conversation I’ve ever had with a co-star.”

There is nothing in Patrick’s contract that says they have to be friends. He has enough friends, and none of them are like Pete Wentz. There is no part of the Multiverse in which Patrick Stump meets Pete Wentz and, together, they form a successful creative collaboration. It could not, will not, should not happen. Pete is to Patrick what Bad Santa was to the Coen Brothers — a terrible mistake. He rubs at the corner of his mouth and doesn’t meet his own eyes in the mirror.

“We’re _not _friends though, are we?” Patrick says carefully. “Maybe you should… delete my number.”

“Right,” Pete says, blank, like an emotional portcullis has lowered between them. Pete probably can’t spell portcullis. Pete probably doesn’t even know what a portcullis _is._ “Well. That’s good to know. Have a safe trip, Patrick. I’ll see you at rehearsals.”

Pete hangs up without saying goodbye.

It bothers Patrick more than he would like to admit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [I can be found on Tumblr here](https://sn1tchesandtalkers.tumblr.com/), drop by for FOB, fic, and feminism :)


	4. Chapter 4

Pete doesn’t sleep the night before filming is set to commence. 

It’s probably not nerves, because he didn’t sleep the night before that, or three nights last week, or a couple of nights a week before that. Sometimes, Pete can’t sleep, and the only thing that can make him sleep is 10mg doses of Ambien, which is fine. Sometimes it’s fine. But it leaves him groggy and unfocused and achieving the medically mandated eight hours is not worth the hangover when he has to get in front of a camera with Patrick “remember that time I won an Olivier” Stump. So, Pete sits on the roof terrace of his house and watches Patrick’s filmography on his laptop until the sun comes up over the hills and the glare whites out the screen. 

It does not make Pete feel any more qualified to act in front of him. 

He calls Andy and tells him so. “I am, like, seriously underqualified for this role.”

“You’re just figuring this out  _ now?” _ Andy asks incredulously, over the background noise of his Lyft driver singing along to Hispanic pop radio. 

“I figured it out in the Ways office,” Pete says, panicked. “But it didn’t seem to matter then because I didn’t think they’d actually cast Patrick fucking Stump. I  _ thought _ they’d go with Taylor Lautner and we could be fucking terrible together.”

“Yeah, it’s like they wanted an actual actor in their wildly hyped, first of its kind, gay romance movie,” Andy deadpans. “Totally surprising, don’t you think? I for one am very surprised.”

Pete verbalises the question he has been asking internally for the past twelve hours: “So why did they cast  _ me?” _

“That,” says Andy, “is one of life’s great mysteries. My money was on Russell Tovey.” When Pete doesn’t laugh he continues. “Dude, I’m kidding! I keep telling you; you’re not a terrible actor. Are you as good as Stump? No. Fuck no. Like… not even a little bit. You’re basically different species.”

“You’re doing an amazing job of making me feel better,” Pete drawls, over the rising sound of his own panicked heartbeat. “Seriously, this is stand up stuff. Oh, God. What am I doing?”

“Are you kidding me? You’re the eye candy.”

This is absurd and Pete laughs, so that Andy can appreciate precisely how absurd it is. “Are  _ you  _ kidding  _ me?” _ he asks. “Are you on a different fucking planet? Have you  _ seen  _ his _ mouth?” _

“I didn’t notice.”

“You didn’t notice?”

“I wasn’t looking.”

“You weren’t looking?”

“I don’t spend a lot of time looking at other dude’s  _ mouths.” _

“You don’t—” Pete stops. To be fair to Andy, the heterosexual majority of men  _ don’t _ devote time to considering the mouths of other men. Pete is not the heterosexual majority. Not that he’s, like, a  _ minority _ or anything. He’s straight. Mostly. At least ninety-percent. He hasn’t checked his Kinsey score or anything, but he figures he’ll ace the test if he tries. “Okay,” he finishes. “But he’s a handsome guy, right? I’m going to be the uggo  _ and _ the dumbass and everyone knows you only get to be one or the other.”

Pete is not good at being the least talented person in the room, which says a lot about the people he’s worked with in the past. Working on this movie with Patrick, with the  _ Ways, _ with a multitude of character actors and producers and fucking know-it-all makeup assistants, Pete must quickly accept that he probably won’t even be the most talented person in his  _ trailer. _

“Listen,” Andy says. “You are not a bad actor, okay? Do we have to do the affirmation exercise?”

“No,” Pete says quickly. “We don’t need to do that.”

Andy continues anyway. “What did American Film said about you after Take This to Your Grave?”

“I don’t remember,” Pete mutters stubbornly. 

“Yes you do. You totally remember. They said…?”

Pete mumbles. “They said I was the best new talent 2003 had to offer.”

“Excuse me?” Andy prompts. “I can’t hear you from all the way down here on Franklin.”

“They said I was the best new talent 2003 had to offer,” Pete repeats, louder but not loudly, and feels stupid because things have changed a lot since then. In fact, the last review of his latest movie just said ‘Pete Wentz is the worst thing to happen to comedic cinema, ever.’ 

The  _ worst  _ thing. _ _

_ Ever. _

As if these people haven’t even heard of Paulie Shore. It’s a lot for an affirmation exercise to overcome. Plus, it’s sort of hard to feel empowered while not wearing pants. 

“Atta boy,” Andy says brightly. “Alright, well. I have kale smoothies and I should be with you in ten at most. Did you shower?”

“Yes,” Pete lies, because there’s no way Andy can prove otherwise. He also grimaces; the constant availability of kale smoothies is the worst part of living in Los Angeles.

“And are you wearing pants?” Andy asks.

“I…” Pete trails off. It will be so much easier for Andy to disprove a pants-related lie if Pete answers the door in basketball shorts spackled with last night’s burrito. “Okay. Define ‘pants.’”

“Something you would feel comfortable being photographed in,” Andy says, then gives it some thought and clearly remembers just who he’s talking to and just what he’s been photographed wearing and adds, “You know, for a  _ classy _ magazine. Like,  _ deliberate _ photography.”

So, Pete grumbles and shuffles into his bedroom and rifles through his closet and puts on actual pants. Properly. With both legs in the appropriate holes and his belt buckled and everything. Then, he sits in his kitchen and stares at his swimming pool and thinks about how much easier the next nine weeks would be if Patrick Stump were to conveniently disappear. 

***

Patrick does not conveniently disappear.

Instead, he’s already at the lot when Pete arrives. Pete finds him standing with the Ways, leaning against Gerard’s chair and gesturing at something on the far side of the set. Patrick’s wearing a tweed vest and tweed cap and blue jeans with brown leather boots. He looks like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, only blond, stocky. When Patrick dips his head towards Gerard, his sandy hair falling into his eyes, Pete feels a poker hot stab of confusing jealousy low in his gut. Whatever Gerard says is clearly hilarious, because Patrick laughs brightly and Pete has a split second to imagine making Patrick laugh like that and then Patrick slips his plump, pink mouth around the first inch or so of a banana and takes a neat bite. 

There is no justice in the world. None whatsoever, because if there was, Patrick would’ve picked an apple, or a danish, or just about anything in catering that  _ isn’t _ shaped like a penis. Pete is aware he’s staring, but in an absent way, removed from the act. Like a cameraman for Animal Planet, Pete can watch, but he can’t intervene. He watches Patrick chew like a voyeur, watches his pale throat contract as he swallows, watches him lick his lips with the shiny pink tip of his tongue. What blood he can feel in his vascular system ricochets, confused, unsure if it should heat his face or fill his dick. 

“Are you okay?” Andy asks, and Pete makes a high-pitched, ridiculous noise in response. “Wow. Well. You’re acting in a totally normal and non creepy way.”

“Mmphrpmh,” says Pete, who now speaks a strange, alien tongue constructed entirely of garbled noise as Patrick takes another bite of his banana, oblivious. There is no particular need to run one’s lips across the ragged bitten edge of a banana…  _ shaft? _ Do bananas have a shaft? Anyway, no one needs to kiss whatever it is before they bite it, is the point.

Pete becomes aware he is staring at Patrick in the moment he becomes aware that Patrick is staring at him. This time, when Patrick smiles, it’s not warm like it was for Gerard. The room chills and there ought to be old time Western shootout music. Pete looks hopelessly between Patrick’s eyes and the casual way his fingers curl around the banana. Pete does not want a label for the way Patrick’s hand, fingers, mouth make him feel. 

“Pete, it’s about time! Get on over here,” Mikey calls, gesturing enthusiastically. Pere does not point out that he is here  _ five whole minutes _ before the mandated start time. That he is acceptably, unfashionably early and Patrick Stump is unforgivably rude for making him appear late. 

The lot is small, this part at least, dedicated to rehearsal space and tracking rigs to perfect sweeping master shots before the production company takes it onto the set for real. Pete sidesteps around cameras and tech crews and rigging reaching up like a big top, his sneakers scuffing against the concrete. No one should be asked to face their nemesis before they’ve had their morning coffee. Pete approaches Gerard, Mikey and Patrick with the enthusiasm of Marie Antionette approaching Madame Guillotine. Marie had it easy, at least she knew it would all be over with relatively quickly.

“Uh, hi,” he says, waggling the four fingers on his right hand and immediately wishing he could snap it off at the wrist. 

Patrick’s smile does not come any closer to his eyes. “Good morning, Mr Wentz,” he murmurs and takes another groin-fizzing bite of his banana, chews, swallows, says, “We were just talking about you.”

There is a Bowie vinyl missing from a shelf in a house up in the hills above Chateau Marmont and it wouldn’t kill Patrick to look grateful about it. Pete decides to approach this as a role, a character exercise. For the next few weeks, Pete intends to play a man who is charmed by Patrick Stump. This one is for the good folks at UCB Franklin.

“I’m sure it was nothing but good things,” Pete grins, although he suspects the opposite. “I’m sure you have nothing but complimentary, amazing things to say about me  _ and _ my acting  _ and  _ my excellent taste in late sixties vinyl.”

“Your taste in vinyl is fine,” Patrick says drily, very deliberately  _ not _ mentioning the acting.

“Is this some kind of code?” Gerard asks, nonplussed. 

“God, fuck it out already,” Mikey jokes, but neither of them smile. “You know what’s awesome? This totally method, intense stare thing the two of you have going on right now. It’s not making me uncomfortable. Not even a little.”

“I’m delighted to work with Pete,” Patrick says, through his teeth, like he’s the opposite of delighted but has a cubic ton of British repression lodged tight in his ass that prevents him from saying what he  _ actually _ means. 

“You hear that,” Pete grins, leaning in to Mikey, like he’s sharing a particularly juicy secret. “He’s  _ delighted _ to work with me. Record it and send it to US Weekly, I feel like it’s the only time he’s going to say it out loud.”

It’s so much easier to tolerate Patrick when Pete is stealthily playing the role of someone who doesn’t dislike him. Pete can keep this up all day.

“Why wouldn’t I be delighted?” Patrick asks mildly, and then, before Pete can provide him with an itemised list, he carries on. “I was just asking Gerard how he felt about rehearsing us separately.”

Pete breaks character immediately.

“No,” Pete says quickly. “No, we don’t need to do that. That’s — I don’t feel comfortable with that.”

“It’s an interesting proposition,” Mikey shrugs, leaning back in his seat and stretching out his long, long legs. “It keeps the whole thing fresh. Between the two of you, I mean.”

“Our character’s first meeting really would be their first meeting,” Patrick shrugs, and takes another bite of his banana. “Come on, Pete. Surely even you can see the benefit.”

What Pete can see is Patrick attempting to prove he’s worth more than Pete. An underhand maneuver at the last possible moment that will toss Pete under the bus and have filming delayed while they cast for a new Louis and Pete returns to rom-com hell. He’s looked in the mirror. He has maybe five years before he’s playing the skeevy old dude. He has around ten before he’s playing the leading lady’s  _ father. _

“No,” Pete says again. “I want to rehearse together. It’s not the same with a production assistant.”

“Is it in your contract?” Patrick asks innocently, his eyebrows raised. 

Pete scowls. “Not exactly.” 

They both look expectantly at Mikey and Gerard, who look at one another. 

“We’re going with what’s in the itinerary,” Gerard says firmly, and Pete would kiss him on the mouth, if that was something that mostly-heterosexual men could do to married directors on their first day of filming. But they can’t, so instead Pete just nods with a tight-lipped smile and Patrick huffs under his breath and then Andy fetches a bear claw and an iced coffee that almost make up for the kale smoothie. 

“Here’s to the next nine weeks,” Pete says impishly, raising his coffee in Patrick’s direction.

“Can’t wait,” Patrick mutters sourly.

“Let’s get this moving,” says Mikey. “Rehearsals start in five, we’ll take it from the top.”

And they do.

***

Pete has never been very good at accepting the rejection of other people. Which is peculiar, because a lot of people have rejected him over the years, usually because of Pete being ‘too.’ Too much. Too loud. Too medicated. Too in love. Too fast. But Pete has never stopped trying because he believes that, one day, he will successfully surround himself with people who find his ‘too’ to be just the right amount. 

He remains confident that he can win Patrick over, if he just tries hard enough. Or else, he’ll irritate him into submission, which is a good second option. 

They wrap up rehearsals for the day at around seven in the evening, just as it’s starting to get dark. Hollywood is different at nighttime, glittering, the neon lights drowning out the ocean in the distance and the only stars visible are the ones on the Walk of Fame. Pete has a golden glow where he no longer senses exactly where the script ends and reality begins, a subtle shift missing between Louis and Peter and Patrick and Marcus and make believe and reality. Patrick is a convincing actor: he’s spent the day making Pete feel unequivocally  _ special _ with every glance, smile, thoughtful brush of his hand to Pete’s cheek. The night is warm for February. Pete doesn’t wear a jacket. 

He falls into step beside Patrick as they head to waiting cars and throws a chummy arm around his shoulders.

“I feel good about today,” he declares, and grips a fraction tighter as Patrick attempts to pull away. “Don’t you?”

“Hmm,” Patrick hums, instead of answering. He’s no longer Marcus, and his tolerance for Pete is wearing thin.

“I’m starving, though. How do you feel about going to In N Out?”

“Can’t. I’m playing a pop star, I need to make an effort to maintain that illusion, visually speaking.”

“Okay, how about this little place down in Malibu. It’s vegan.”

“I already have stuff in the fridge,” Patrick objects.

“Great!” Pete declares heartily. “I’ll come over. What’re we having?”

“We?” asks Patrick, alarmed. “Oh, no. I mean, I don’t think — I really couldn’t, it’s just—”

“Relax, Trick, God. I’m not really going to make you cook for me,” Pete punches him on the shoulder, friendly. Patrick flinches and appears to struggle not to dust away the lingering impression of Pete’s fingerprints from his shirt. “Do you ever unclench, like, at all?”

Patrick pulls back. He turns and he looks at Pete and there is stubble clinging to his jaw and his lush, pink mouth is just slightly open, enough that Pete can see the white suggestion of his teeth behind. This close, his eyes are devastating, so clear and blue-green and tinged with gold like seaglass. And, like seaglass, the surface is smooth but it keeps the potential to cut. Pete’s breath catches in his throat, he resists, somehow, the urge to gasp. He is finding it increasingly hard to think heterosexual thoughts. 

“Pete,” Patrick says sharply, which is not the way Pete wants Patrick to say his name  _ at all.  _ “Pete, listen to me.” And Pete knows, he  _ knows _ like breathing, that if he doesn’t say something quick and clever and thoroughly perfect, Patrick is going to push him away with such startling severity that Pete will never come back. Patrick pauses, he wets his lips, and Pete thinks no, no Patrick cannot be  _ allowed _ to verbalise whatever terrible thing he’s thinking. “The thing is—”

“Could I sit in on some of your scenes in the next couple days?” Pete asks, quickly. “The ones without me, obviously.”

Patrick blinks at him owlishly. “I beg your pardon?” he asks, bewildered. “Why do you want to—”

“Are you kidding me? Because I know you’re, like,  _ amazing,” _ Pete grins and decides it is truly criminal how lovely Patrick looks when he blushes. “And I think, maybe, it might be helpful for me to observe your method, you know? Maybe I could inject a little of it into my own performance. Maybe you could… make me better.”

“I’m not your acting coach,” Patrick says briskly, and heads for one of the waiting, studio-owned cars by the kerb. “Goodnight, Pete.”

“Wait!” Pete calls, and Patrick pauses, his hand braced against the doorframe, his shoulders tense. “Just, wait a second.”

Patrick sighs. “What?”

“I don’t get it,” Pete admits softly. “I don’t get why you don’t want to help me. Why you’re being such a dick about this? If I fail, you fail too. Don’t you care enough about this project to make it succeed?”

“I care about this project,” Patrick mutters. “I care about it more than I’ve cared about anything else in my career.”

“So let me sit in,” Pete pleads. “I know you think if you sulk enough that I’ll quit and go home, but we’re  _ shooting _ now. Don’t you get that? You’re not getting your Russell Fucking Tovey. You have me. And I want to make this into the best damn movie I can. But you have to meet me halfway, man. You have to — You need to let me try.”

Patrick climbs into the car and Pete is left on the sidewalk. His devastation is epic, measurable on the Nuclear Disaster Index as he contemplates the wisdom of punching a wall, of splitting his knuckles against the brick with the volcanic heat of his frustration. The window rolls down and Patrick leans out. His expression is guarded, thoughtful.

“Watch my dailies,” he says, his eyes unreadable in the shadow. “Let me know what you think.”

If anyone else in Hollywood said that to him — to  _ Pete Wentz  _ — he would laugh. But Pete nods, grateful, and bites his lip. The window rolls up and the car heads off to the condo the studio have provided for Patrick up in Trousdale. Pete turns to his own car and his own quiet house. 

He doesn’t sleep much. 

He doesn’t mind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm going to have, like one tiny outburst about how much I love the new single and then I swear I'll never mention it again. God, I fucking _adore_ it and I absolutely wasn't expecting to, so this is pretty much amazing. Anyway, I love it so much that I'm writing a fic based on the vibes it gave me and I'm totally going to inflict that on you soon. 
> 
> In other news, [I can be found on Tumblr here](https://sn1tchesandtalkers.tumblr.com/) posting things in no particular order or theme :D


	5. Chapter 5

Patrick tries to spend as little time as possible with Pete throughout the first week of rehearsals. 

This isn’t as straightforward as it should be because rehearsals generally work best when both participants are in the same room. Also, Pete has the emotional resilience of an especially stubborn terrier and grips into Patrick with ferocious need; a baby sloth caught on the underbelly of its mother. No matter how quickly Patrick attempts to dart from the building, no matter how many times he says he’s going to skip lunch in favour of reading something (anything), Pete agrees with ‘the plan’ with a sunny smile and plops himself down in a chair next to Patrick and _stares_ at him, creepily, until Patrick gives up and devotes a few moments of time to thinking about tossing Pete from the top of the water tower in the Warner Bros lot. 

Patrick is certain that they _don’t_ have a shared schedule. Therefore, there is nothing that could be described as ‘the plan.’ There’s not even enough to constitute ‘an option,’ let alone many, linked ideas that would necessitate a ‘plan.’ Then, before Patrick can do anything more than glower at him unhelpfully, Pete asks him what he’s reading and the whole thing becomes an event. 

(Annoyingly, when Pete asks what he’s reading, Patrick’s actually playing Candy Crush but he can’t admit that, can he? Nervous, he blurts out the first book that comes to mind, even though he’s never picked it up in his life. He tells Pete (lies) that he only started it yesterday and agrees (lies _again)_ to go back to the start, so they can read together.)

So, somehow, Pete’s gone from someone Patrick didn’t want to associate with, to someone with whom he’s established a two man book club. They’re reading Consider the Lobster. It’s very upsetting. Patrick is very upset.

The worst part is that Pete is actually... _okay._ He knows his stuff about modern literature. He has completely acceptable opinions on every band and musician that Patrick’s ever loved. He tells funny, self-deprecating anecdotes about interesting people from actors to critics to directors and producers and lighting technicians. Patrick, annoyingly, is starting to _like_ Pete. Which wouldn’t be so bad if Pete didn’t look like he does, all brooding mouth and striking eyes and aggressively masculine jaw. 

If crushes on straight men are unacceptable, then crushes on straight _colleagues _are, quite frankly, fucking _tragic._

Not to mention uncomfortable. The last thing anyone wants is to be the next Weinstein. Not that Patrick is. Not that he would ever be. This is exactly what the mainstream media wants to believe; that the gay man is predatory, that he can’t control himself around defined abs and a line of dark, curling hair that dips beneath a waistband. So, Patrick only looks at Pete from the corner of his eye and, of course, it’s completely pointless, because Pete is always staring at him openly, smiling crookedly. Which is fine because Pete is straight and therefore allowed to look at whomsoever he fucking chooses. Patrick carefully puts down his phone and takes a bite of his cinnamon roll. 

“Can I help you with something?” he asks irritably, crumbs caught on his mouth. 

Pete laughs, thoroughly charming. “You’ve, uh, got a little something, right here.” 

Which would be no big deal, except he reaches over and _touches Patrick’s mouth_ with the rough pad of his thumb. 

Patrick’s thought process fossilises. He no longer thinks, just feels gritty, calcified chunks of brain matter scraping over one another like tectonic plates. It’s like an electric shock. A localised burn. Patrick feels it throughout his body, as if the blood cells directly beneath the skin Pete just touched can carry the sensation _everywhere._ The mouth, Patrick notes absently, is an erogenous zone often overlooked by touching. Kissing, yes, not that Patrick has been kissed much recently, but it seems touching is just as intimate but much rarer. His pulse is contained entirely in his lower lip. He makes a sound somewhere beyond the recorded vocal register and shoves Pete’s hand away. 

“Do you _mind?”_ he snaps breathlessly. “You can’t just _touch _me! Why are your hands _wet,_ you filthy urchin?”

“Don’t worry, it’s spit, not piss,” Pete says, grinning a Wentzian grin. Then he pops his thumb into his mouth and sucks away the smudge of frosting that’s probably warm from Patrick’s mouth. It’s intimate like kissing is intimate. Like touching someone’s mouth is intimate. One degree of separation from Pete licking it from Patrick’s skin. “You need to relax,” Pete says, like Patrick will ever relax again in his life, “you’ll live longer.”

“How long I live, or do not live, depends on how bloody badly you cock up the first few scenes,” Patrick says scathingly. “If you’re as awful as you were in the readthrough, I’ll have no choice but to throw myself from the Capitol Records building.”

“You know, this sarcastic British thing you have going on is really hot,” Pete tells him. “We should talk to Gerard and Mikey about including your accent, it’s totally making my dick hard.”

Patrick wants to say _It’s only sarcastic if I don’t mean it. _But then Pete might take offence. Patrick wants to say _Please don’t talk about your dick being hard._ But that will probably make Pete ask _why_ and that’s a question Patrick doesn’t want to answer. He shifts and pulls his shirt down over his lap and tries to think of something clever to say. There’s nothing but a blank and endless void where his wit once resided. He thinks it might have pooled into his crotch.

“Did you watch the dailies?” Patrick asks, when he’s finished glaring and resumed breathing. Not that he cares either way. Not that Pete, rock star of the romantic comedy, will have reduced himself to taking a seat in video village at the end of each day.

“I’ll get around to it,” Pete shrugs, still smiling, waving his hand. 

“Doesn’t bother me either way, mate,” Patrick grunts. “Just trying to help you out a bit.”

“You know,” Pete says thoughtfully, leaning across the gap between their chairs and directly into Patrick’s personal space. “If you keep flattering me this much, people are going to talk about us…”

Before Patrick can retort, someone calls from the doorway, “Pete, you’re needed in makeup,” and Pete stands, brushes crumbs from his clearly not-hard crotch and winks at Patrick. 

“First scene,” he says brightly. “You nervous?”

Patrick snorts. “I don’t get nervous. Nerves cause an actor to make poor choices, second guess the role. Does _Marcus_ feel nervous before he meets Louis? I’d wager there’s too much cocaine in his system for him to even feel his own feet.”

“You were a theatre kid at school, weren’t you?” Pete asks, grinning. All Cheshire. 

“I have a _degree_ in theatre. I went to theatre _university_,” Patrick retorts, and he enunciates it, like a wanker. _Thee-a-tor. _This is why he hasn’t had a shag in over a year. Not that Pete would want to shag him even if he _didn’t_ sound like an absolute twat. Patrick presses his thighs together and prays for divine intervention. He is not religious. Nothing happens.

_“Such_ a theatre kid,” Pete says fondly, then disappears from Patrick’s trailer. “See you soon, Marcus.”

Patrick closes his eyes. He can still smell Pete’s cologne which is doing unfortunate things to his hormones. He has a short term plan that involves finding a quiet corner of his trailer and relieving himself to one of the many fantasies he’s built up of his mouth on Pete’s cock. He has a long term plan that involves packing up his career as an actor and doing something that will never bring him into contact with Pete Wentz ever again. Yak farming, perhaps. Or maybe an exploratory scientist who conducts lonely missions to uncovered jungles in deserted parts of the world. When he opens his eyes, there is a man standing directly in front of him. Patrick screams. Theatrically.

“Joe! Bloody hell, don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“I didn’t,” Joe points out. “I knocked on the door and I said ‘Pete, you’re needed in makeup.’ I did, like, the _opposite_ of sneaking up on you. Got your newspaper.”

Joe is Patrick’s appointed PA for the duration of his time on set, a Juilliard graduate with blue, blue eyes and a faint smell of dope caught in his hair at all times. In the movie industry, a good PA commands a generous salary in exchange for making sure that their boss’s life goes unencumbered by boring things like fetching their own coffee, or laundering their own underwear. In London, Patrick can’t afford a PA. Nor can he afford one in Los Angeles. The studio, however, can afford many, many PAs, who they keep on a roster to assign to actors like Patrick who don’t have their own.

Patrick doesn’t really know what to _do_ with him, but he tries his best to keep him busy. Sometimes, he asks him for the newspaper and a copy of The Guardian appears in his trailer like Joe is a magician, extracting newsprint from a hat instead of white rabbits. Sometimes, Patrick asks for a coffee and a ridiculous chai latte finds its way into his hand. But asking for newspapers and lattes makes him feel like an arse, so, usually, he asks Joe if he has any idea how to solve one of the puzzles in the bumper book of sudoku that Patrick brought along to while away his time in hair and makeup. Joe is frighteningly good at sudoku. 

Patrick unfolds his newspaper and begins to read.

“You know,” Joe says. “The news is on your phone.”

“Hmm?” Patrick murmurs.

“I’m just saying, you could read the news on your phone. You don’t need an _actual_ newspaper.”

Patrick folds down the corner of the page and considers Joe carefully over the frames of his glasses. It’s a look he’s perfected from playing so many sodding teachers. “Joseph,” he begins grandly. “I _like_ reading the newspaper.”

“Do you, though?” Joe asks, straightening suit bags with the afternoon’s costumes zipped away neatly inside. “All you do is get mad and complain about the—”

“Bloody Tories,” Patrick mutters, glancing over _another_ headline about Brexit. “Sorry, what was that?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Joe grins, and shoves Patrick’s legs down so he can sit in the seat Pete just vacated. “You’re such an old man sometimes.”

“Pete tells me the same thing.”

“Yeah? What’s it like? Working with him?”

Patrick affects a disinterested moue. “Oh,” he shrugs. “You know. One Hollywood dudebro is much the same as all the others. I’m not a gossip.”

“Wow. You should _not_ say dudebro in that accent.”

“So what _should _I call him?”

“Dunno. A cad or something.”

“Fine.” Patrick rolls his eyes. “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others _when_ever they go. Is that better?”

“Wilde,” Joe says, smirking. “So, the book club thing is just a malicious rumour?”

See? This is precisely how scandals start. Patrick blushes, which is his least favourite thing to do because he has absolutely no control over it and, as an actor, he resents physical reactions over which he has no control. Chances are, Joe won’t even notice. 

“Aww,” Joe laughs. “You’re blushing.”

“Shut up,” Patrick snaps. “And it’s _not _a book club. We just so happen to be reading the same book. And discussing the relevant merits of it. And — Oh _God_, it’s a fucking book club, isn’t it?”

“I think it’s cute!” Joe continues. “Everyone said you were this total diva and then you arrive on set and start a book club with the most notorious asshole in Hollywood.”

“He’s not an arsehole,” Patrick says. Odd, because he’s spent the past four months telling himself that Pete is the biggest arsehole in the Western hemisphere. It’s probably because ‘asshole’ sounds so much worse than ‘arsehole.’ Semantics. Nothing more. “He’s just… socially insensitive.”

“How so?” Joe asks, fiddling with his phone. 

“Well, who takes the role of a bisexual man in a relationship with a gay man, when the gay man is being played by an _actual_ gay man?”

Joe’s brows crush together over his blue, blue eyes. “I don’t understand.”

Isn’t it obvious? It feels obvious. In a world in which everyone wants to be seen to embrace the rainbow, there are an awful lot of people who forget the ones who stand beneath it. Wokeness has replaced true representation. Patrick doesn’t like playing the gay card, but it seems he’s discovered a whole _deck_ of them tucked in his pocket. 

“You know,” he prompts, taking a sip of his coffee. _“I’m _gay, the character I’m playing is gay. The character Pete is playing is bisexual, but Pete’s straighter than a bloody Ed Sheeran song, isn’t he?”

The question is rhetorical, but Joe raises his eyebrows in a way that suggests it is not. “Well…” he begins, then tips his head to the side and starts again. “I mean, sort of?”

Suddenly, Patrick is paying attention.

Suddenly, Patrick is rapt.

“Well?” he prompts. “Sort of? What do you mean?”

It takes Joe an unreasonable length of time to reply. This could be because he enjoys the sense of drama or because he’s reached a particularly tricky level of Candy Crush, it’s impossible to tell. Finally, he looks up from the screen and blinks lazily and says, “You don’t work in this town for as long as I have without hearing… stories.” 

“Stories?” Patrick prompts, fighting every urge he has to lean forward in his folding chair, grab Joe by the hands and squeal ‘tell me _everything.’_ Because that would not be subtle. Or normal. So, Patrick affects the subtle and normal disinterest of an impartial work colleague (which is how Pete sees him) instead of the grubby, dirty desperation of a man who has masturbated over Pete more times than he’d like to count. Or admit to in a court of law. 

“You know,” Joe shrugs. “I hear he’s crossed that particular frontier once or twice. And by crossed, I mean sucked, and by frontier, I mean dick.”

Patrick’s pulse thunders up through the scale to something on-par with an Extinction Level Event. He shivers, his fingers gripping into the newspaper so hard his nails tear through. Patrick is struck by a vision of Pete sucking _his _dick that is so vivid, so sudden, so unbelievably clear, his knees buckle. It’s convenient that he’s sitting down, the breath punched from his lungs, his mouth hanging open as he stares at Joe.

“No,” he says breathlessly. God, he’s _panting_ at the thought of Pete engaging in undisclosed sexual activity with a man. “No, he’s definitely straight. He was _married,_ for God’s sake.”

“So was Elton John,” Joe shrugs, tugging back the lid on a carton of yoghurt. “My sources are trustworthy.”

“Who?” Patrick asks sharply, barely recovered from the melting image of Pete on his knees, of his cocky smirk wrapped around Patrick’s dick. Of Patrick _inside_ of Pete, where he’s warm and wet and grinning filthily. He specifically chooses not to examine if he means ‘who told you’ or ‘who has Pete had sex with.’ This is character development. He’s proud of himself.

Joe smirks and licks his spoon carefully. “I thought you said you’re not a gossip.”

Patrick smooths his newspaper and carefully pretends to read an article about farming quotas. Outwardly, he’s the picture of calm, British sophistication. Internally, he’s very much having a crisis. Fuck, is Pete _gay? _Bisexual? Curious and looking for a partner in experimentation? Not that it’s true, obviously. This is Hollywood, a city where the only thing murkier than the rumours is the smog. He shakes his head and reminds himself that even if it was true — which, clearly, it’s not — it makes no difference to Patrick. To Pete. To their fucking two man book club.

“I’m not gossiping,” he murmurs, performing a passable impression of someone completely disinterested in the sexuality of Pete Wentz. “He can shag whoever he wants.”

***

_Tip the world on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles._

That what Frank LLoyd Wright said. That’s how Patrick feels. Every loose bolt inside of him rattles and hums and the city truly is a magnetic epicentre for everything that needs a resolution. It wants to burst out of him. He craves London. 

But if Patrick’s stitch has come loose, then what about Pete’s? Is the hand he rests on Patrick’s arm as they watch through a take on the control monitor entirely friendly? Is there a hidden meaning in the arm he doesn’t remove from Patrick’s waist when Mikey cuts between takes? Patrick is so firmly trapped in his own head that he finds it impossible to slip inside of Marcus’s. Every remedy, every trick and tool at his disposal doesn’t work. Again and again he slams up against the membrane but he can’t break through. There’s a possibility that Pete might ruin Patrick’s career along with his reputation. Pete keeps smiling, and Patrick tries not to think about what that smile means. 

Filming continues and Patrick, flat on his back with a tube strapped to his cheek, is not sure he looks the sexiest he’s ever looked. Patrick, a gay man on set with a (questioning?) straight man, is not sure this is a line of thought he should pursue. This is what they whispered about him in university: ‘The gay kiss is an art form, legitimising, unless it’s a gay kiss with a gay man that wants it. Then it’s just gay.’ Patrick is the leading man in his own self-flagellation. Pete crouches beside him and reveals the masculine thickness of his tattooed wrists. Patrick turns his head and vomits cleanly, the spray of slime and sponge and his own mouthful of chewed spaghetti hitting Pete’s shoes. 

‘’Cut,” says Gerard, crouched at the control monitor with Mikey and Ray Toro, the AD. “Okay, that’s it for today. It’s looking really good, guys. Amazing.”

Patrick knows it could look better. Patrick recognises that _he_ is the reason it doesn’t.

Joe bounds into Patrick’s orbit before he’s finished wiping the gunk from his face. “We’re going out for beers,” he says cheerfully. “Are you coming?”

What Patrick would like to do is go back to his studio housing, call his mum, change into pyjamas and binge watch Netflix until he falls into a coma. “I’ll catch you up,” he says eventually; he can always lie and say he looked for them. He doesn’t want to be around Pete right now. He knows that isn’t fair. “I just want to make a couple of calls.”

He retreats to his trailer and hides until he’s sure everyone has left.

***

He stumbles across Pete in video village, his headphones slung on the wrong way around, the headband curved under his chin like a dark, dangerous smile. The control monitor flickers, the shadows bouncing around the walls like a horror movie. Pete’s mouth is a flat line, his brows furrowed, he’s curled up in a hoodie that’s at least three sizes too big. He looks astonishingly beautiful.

Pete notices him, smiles an unguarded smile and pops a can from one ear. “Hey,” he says. “Come sit with me for a minute?”

Patrick does. “I didn’t think you’d watch,” he says, feeling stupid that he sounds so touched. “Not that it makes any difference to me, but—”

“I said I would,” Pete shrugs. “You’re not exactly a hard sell, you know. I could watch you act forever.”

They watch the monitor in silence. In spite of the awards shows and the premieres, Patrick is desperately uncomfortable with watching himself on camera. Still, he watches because the alternative is looking at this new, vulnerable Pete.

“I’m sorry I’m ruining your movie,” Pete says, and Patrick thinks he’s chewing on the string of his hoodie as he talks, his voice mumbly and thick. “I didn’t mean to.”

“You’re not ruining anything. You got the role, I got the role,” Patrick pauses, “I honestly believe that the Ways wouldn’t compromise their artistic integrity for the sake of a studio decision. If they want you to be here, they must have a reason for that. You’re not bad.”

Pete laughs. “Coming from you, that almost sounds like a compliment. You make me feel like I can do anything.”

Patrick doesn’t examine how that makes him feel. Instead, he shrugs and says, “Well, that’s not coming through in your performance. Feel harder.” And he realises how that sounds before he can stop, the words hanging between them and begging for Pete to crack a joke, to look disgusted. He does neither, just leans forward and grabs at his can of Red Bull.

“Joe said something,” Patrick begins hesitantly, his voice too big for the room. He can feel Pete looking at him as clearly as he can see Pete’s big, blunt hands curled around his drink. He is aware of Pete in the same way he’s aware of himself, his nerve endings and skin cells recalibrated, the password handed out to Pete. “Never mind,” he says quickly. “It doesn’t matter.”

Pete’s smile doesn’t falter. Patrick knows this without looking. Their quiet is self-contained, comfortable. 

“This part,” Pete says suddenly, curling a hand around Patrick’s bicep and tugging him closer. It brings their mouths within kissing distance and Patrick wonders, absently, how Pete’s lips might feel pressed to his. It’s a scene they haven’t rehearsed. Mikey and Gerard want it to look unsteady, uncertain, the way first kisses are supposed to look. Pete taps the monitor. “Look, watch how you…” Patrick watches himself awkwardly. “How the fuck do you _do_ that?”

His forehead creases, he can see it reflected in the edge of the screen; a confused Patrick next to a smiling Pete. “What do you mean?” 

“How do you make it look so effortless?” Pete asks. “You’re not thinking about how to be Marcus, you’re just... _Marcus.”_

“Marcus isn’t thinking about how to be Marcus,” Patrick points out. “Marcus _is _just Marcus. He thinks about things that Marcus would be thinking about. You need to remove that final degree of separation: You’re not Pete playing Louis and wondering what motivates Louis. You _are_ Louis.”

“Right, super simple. No problem.” Pete sighs and shoves back into his chair. He’s no longer smiling. Again, Patrick knows this without looking.

“I should get away,” Patrick says eventually. “I promised Joe I’d meet him at a completely dreadful bar in West Hollywood.”

“Harlowe?” Pete asks. Patrick’s heart accelerates with the idea that Pete might join him, that Pete might suggest they share a cab, that their thighs might press together in the back seat. 

“You’re coming?” he asks, not eagerly. He knows it definitely doesn’t sound eager.

“Nah,” Pete shrugs and tugs his hood up over his head. “It’s a first day of filming thing, they _always _go to Harlowe. I think I’ll stay here, watch a little more.”

“Right,” Patrick murmurs, he can’t handle the idea of Pete watching him, alone, but has no choice, no reasonable objection. “Of course. I — See you tomorrow, then.”

This time, Patrick looks at Pete and Pete looks back, smiling sunnily. But Pete is a horrible actor and it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Sure, man. G’night. See you tomorrow.”

“Sleep well,” Patrick adds uselessly. He slips on his jacket and fingers the security pass in the pocket. It’s past 11, he ought to go home, call his mum and reassure her he’s not dead, sleep.

“Hey, Trick?” Pete calls, when Patrick is reaching for the door. Patrick pauses but doesn’t look back at Pete’s face, Pete’s sad smile. “What _does_ Marcus think about?”

“Louis,” Patrick says quietly. “Marcus is _always_ thinking about Louis.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week: The Kissing Scene. [Come say hi on tumblr](https://sn1tchesandtalkers.tumblr.com/) or let me know what you think, if you had a minute :)


	6. Chapter 6

It’s another beautiful day in Los Angeles and Pete doesn’t appreciate it at all.

This is because Pete is dying slowly of humiliation, facedown on his hall floor. 

As he waits for death, he thinks about his previous sexual transgressions and attempts to make sense of something more confusing than the bumper book of math problems that Patrick carries around everywhere he goes. The equation goes something like this: gender of previous sexual partners, multiplied to the power of how many times the gender has matched his own, divided by the square root of a cishet marriage. If this is a numbers game, then girls win out. Hands down. Pete has fucked his way cheerfully through a decent percentage of the female population of both Los Angeles and Chicago and a couple of dozen cities in between. Enjoyed it, too.

But if this is a game where participation is key, then Pete is forced to admit that his encounters with dudes have been… different. More intense. There’s no denying that Patrick invokes that same sparking heat in his gut, that same tickly-good feeling that has Pete reaching for his dick in the shower when he thinks about Patrick on his knees. But maybe this is all a coincidence and Pete just likes bigger hands. Maybe he has a beard kink. That seems more likely than something outrageous like him being  _ gay.  _ He groans and rubs the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, all the better to grind out the ridiculous thoughts rattling around his head.

The tile is cool under his back. There’s no one else in the house to witness him rolling around on his entryway floor. He surrenders to his own private breakdown until his phone rings.

Again.

“God,” he groans into the tile, cool under his cheek. God doesn’t answer, unsurprisingly. Pete works his phone out from under his chest without opening his eyes and slams his palm against it until it stops ringing. “Alright, alright, fuck.”

“Pete?” Andy says, his voice panicked and fast. “Pete is that you?”

“It’s me,” he confirms, mumbled through his hands. “Unfortunately.”

“Are you home?” Andy asks, worried. “I’m outside and… Fucking hell, dude. You scared the shit out of me.”

Oh, yeah. So, to recap. Last night, Pete was supposed to kiss Patrick. An intimate moment between two men, several cameras, Gerard and Mikey Way and a couple dozen studio staff. But, instead of kissing Patrick, Pete panicked.

It was a hideous thing. 

The closer Patrick’s mouth got, the less it felt like acting. It felt real. Pete  _ wanted  _ to kiss Patrick. Which is not surprising – at least, that’s what he’s spent the past twelve hours or so telling himself – he’s playing a role and, like Patrick told him to, he’s letting Louis into his head. It was  _ Louis _ who wanted to kiss Marcus. But Pete’s blood thundered when Patrick leaned into it, mouth dry, palms wet. It was not so much the fear of it looking unnatural that made Pete balk, but the fear of it looking very,  _ very _ natural indeed. So, with Patrick’s mouth pink and soft and kissing distance from Pete’s, he did the mature thing and squeaked out something about bad empanadas and bolted for the door.

No one stopped him.

When he got home, he didn’t dare look at Twitter in case his public workplace humiliation had leaked and was already subject to opinions of no more than 140 characters. He just laid down and ignored his phone and waited for the sweet embrace of death. It was George Berkeley who reasoned if a heterosexual man ducks out of kissing another man and everyone is around to see it, how long until it makes its way onto social media? Or something like that. There’s a possibility he used a slightly different analogy, but the sentiment was basically the same.

Pete can’t move, he’s frozen in carbonite of his own hubris. The embarrassment that grips him every time he tries is too much, crushing the breath out of him. It is  _ suffocating.  _ Still, Andy knows all this, witnessed it firsthand. Andy is also waiting for an answer so Pete clears his dry throat, swallows a few times and croaks a response.

“Oh, I’m home,” Pete agrees, flopping onto his back and staring up at the ceiling. “I’m definitely home. I can never leave now. This is it. I stay here now.”

“I’m using the key and I’m coming inside,” Andy warns him. “Jesus Christ, Pete. You don’t – Do you know what I was thinking?”

Pete does, actually. There are enough articles on gossip sites about an incident in a Best Buy parking lot for an educated man to take a guess. Andy is great, really, he is, he doesn’t crowd Pete. But there’s every possibility there will never be enough days, hours, minutes between that catastrophic moment and whatever present they find themselves in that will stop Andy from panicking every time Pete doesn’t pick up the phone. Pete throws his arm up over his face and groans quietly. “I’m sorry,” he assures Andy. “I’m totally—”

“Idiot,” Andy declares, from the very open front door. “What a sorry fucking sight you are.”

Pete doesn’t argue. Pete is inclined to agree. No longer is Pete made of flesh and bone and blood, now he’s just itchy embarrassment wrapped in skin. So, he whines pitifully and tips his face out of direct sunlight and prays for a sudden and violent and  _ localized _ earthquake to open up the earth and swallow him.

“Leave me alone,” he whimpers, curling into a ball. “Can’t you see I’m trying to die of humiliation?”

Andy sits on the floor next to Pete. “I can see that. How’s it working out?”

“There are high points and low points. Like, I haven’t checked Instagram in twelve hours and everyone’s always saying I should take a social media break so, you know, that’s good? On the other hand, I can see right under the bureau and it ain’t pretty.” Pete squints. “When was the last time I ate Chinese food? I feel like it was a while ago, but I’m pretty sure that’s a wonton under there.”

Andy sighs, “Do you want to talk about it?” 

“The wonton?” Pete asks, confused.

“No, idiot, the fucking kiss.”

And, like. _ No. _ A thousand times no. Obviously fucking  _ not. _ There is nothing Pete wants to talk about less than he wants to talk about  _ running away _ when he was supposed to kiss Patrick, because then Andy is going to ask  _ why _ Pete ran away when he was supposed to kiss Patrick. Pete has spent the night wondering the same thing. Pete has also spent the night wondering if FedEx boxes come big enough for him to sneak his way inside and have himself shipped to fucking…  _ Russia  _ or somewhere. The idea of  _ talking about it _ fills Pete with visceral panic. His heartbeat has developed several tiny sub-heartbeats and none of them bear resemblance to the average beats per minute of an adult male at rest. His palms, armpits, crotch,  _ lungs _ all sweat sour, panicky sweat. 

“No,” he says shortly. “I’d rather not.”

“So, what’s the plan?” Andy asks, bracing against the bottom step of Pete’s staircase and performing some kind of complicated, cross-legged lift. 

“We did this class at UCB once,” Pete says. “I’m channeling that. I act as bacon, I become bacon, and sooner or later a dog will come along and eat me.”

“That’s a really specific class.”

“Hmm.”

Andy pauses, holds the lift. The muscles in his thighs round and Pete can see straight up his shorts. He looks away. “You know you have to go back to work today, right?”

“You can’t make me,” Pete says stubbornly. “I’m my own man.”

“No, but the legal team can make you.”

“You’re a horrible personal assistant. Has anyone told you this?”

“So far, you’re my only client. And since I spent two hours last night convincing Gerard and Mikey that you react violently to veggie burgers, I think the words you’re looking for are ‘thank you.’”

Pete groans and blinks up at the art deco chandelier high above his head. His whole body is an embarrassed throb, like a bruise of mortification. “I am eternally grateful for your continued assistance,” he says flatly. “As a token of my appreciation, please accept a prawn wonton. Age unknown.”

“Dude,” says Andy carefully, nudging Pete with his toe. “Get up. Get in the shower. I’ll find you some pants.”

“Am I not wearing pants?” Pete asks vaguely.

“You are not.”

“Oh,” Pete says. Lying on the floor, apparently without pants, Pete is struck by the absurdity of the situation. This is the kind of thing that someone ought to write a screenplay about. He assumes he’d be played by James Marsden and Patrick by Hugh Dancy and this is the shot they’d run with in the trailer. And then he starts to laugh. Once he starts, he finds he can’t stop, and it must be contagious because Andy is laughing with him. Pete laughs until his stomach aches, until his eyes stream and he collapses back onto the tiles, wheezing, breathless. “Oh God,” he says. “Yeah, let’s get to the studio. Maybe Patrick won’t be  _ too _ offended.”

“I think he’s going to kill you,” Andy informs him, which only makes Pete laugh harder. “Seriously, I think your life is in immediate danger.”

“He loves me,” says Pete. “He just keeps it hidden.  _ Really _ hidden.”

“Hmm,” says Andy dubiously. 

***

“I’m going to fucking kill you,” is the first thing Patrick shouts when Pete arrives at the lot.

Pete, who wasn’t expecting Patrick to be there with quite such ferocious immediacy, screams and falls back into the seat of the studio car. While Patrick might not be the most intimidating man in a physical sense, there’s a lot to be said for the element of surprise. And volume. 

“Fucking hell,” Pete snaps, his voice sceechier than he’d like it to be given the circumstances. “Could you give me a second before you start issuing death threats?”

“You,” Patrick snarls, and he jabs a finger into Pete’s face, just in case there was any doubt as to which ‘you’ he is referring. “You ran off. You made me look like an idiot.  _ You _ looked like an idiot.”

“Look, I wasn’t feeling great—”

“I don’t give a fuck  _ how _ you were feeling! It’s a pivotal scene, idiot, and you managed to keep your gastric issues in check until that point.”

Pete sneers. “Sorry, did the idea of sticking your tongue in my mouth get your dick hard?”

It’s the wrong thing to say. On a top 10 list of the worst possible things to say, it’s almost certainly in the top 3. The kind of statement that would go platinum in a rock ‘n’ roll hall of dumbass. Patrick’s snarl is nuclear. 

“You’re right,” he spits. “I signed up for this so I’d be presented with the opportunity to cop a feel of Pete Fucking Wentz. How clever of you, how fucking  _ cunning _ , that you managed to figure it out.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know  _ exactly _ what you mean,” Patrick snaps. 

There are a lot of people staring. An uncomfortable number. And Pete has presented the Academy Awards, so he’s used to large numbers of people staring at him. Of course, those people weren’t staring because a BAFTA winner just accused him of outright homophobia, so this part is a first. People stare because he’s famous and because Patrick is famous, and they’re conducting an argument in the parking lot at an unreasonable volume. Pete feels his pulse in each vein, each fine capillary.

Pete shuffles his feet and scratches the back of his neck and takes a very deep breath and says, “I’m sorry.”

Patrick, who is pitching for a fight, pauses, confused. “Excuse me?” he says suspiciously. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m sorry,” Pete says, clearly now. There’s an interested teamster with a phone not ten feet away; Pete projects his voice. “I’m sorry I offended you and I’m sorry I messed up the scene. I was just nervous. You’re so fucking good it makes me want to  _ die, _ okay? I can’t compete and that’s not your fault but I promise, I  _ swear, _ I didn’t bolt because of no homo, alright?”

Patrick clearly knows this is bullshit, but Patrick has also seen the teamster with the cell phone and his eyes narrow, his nostrils flare. He is palpably irritated. Pete is relying heavily on the presence of witnesses to excuse him from the threat of immediate physical violence. 

“That’s very big of you,” Patrick says, his teeth clenched so tightly that Pete begins to worry for that nationalised, public health dentistry. “I accept your apology and I remain confident that you’ll make a better effort in the reshoot.” For an actor, he’s not doing a very convincing job of  _ not _ looking like he hates Pete’s guts. 

Pete gives two thumbs up and his biggest asshole smile. They’re standing so close they actually  _ could _ kiss. Pete’s not sure if it would attract more attention or less than their current display of cameradie, but it would make one hell of a headline. Bravely, he tips a friendly punch into Patrick’s shoulder and says playfully, “We’re cool, big guy?”

The whole lot holds its breath collectively. Clearly, everyone here is expecting Pete to land on his ass via the medium of Patrick’s knuckles. Any second now. They shuffle closer. 

And Patrick, in an unexpected maneuver, softens completely. His lips quirk into a sweet, understanding smile. He grabs Pete’s shoulder and squeezes chummily.

“I get it.  _ Truly, _ I understand. It’s confusing, isn’t it?” Pete has this horrible idea that he knows what Patrick is talking about but, at the same time, he  _ really hopes _ Patrick has  _ no idea _ what he’s talking about. He nods slowly, warily. “Remember; what happens on camera isn’t a reflection on what you do  _ away _ from it, alright?”

“Sure,” Pete says cautiously. It almost sounds like Patrick is onto him, like Patrick knows the source of his swift exit stage left wasn’t a Big Heterosexual Panic, but rather a Cataclysmic Possibly Not Straight Meltdown, right in front of cameras one through four. That, like a male-attracted Icarus, Pete flew too close to the sun and then crashed and burned. 

Patrick squeezes his arm once more and the blood beneath his grip turns molten, pools in Pete’s cheeks and his traitorous groin and he thinks  _ Yes, it’s official, you have a crush on Patrick Stump, you fucking dumb-dumb. _ Pete says something that may or may not be words, noises that make Patrick grin for the first time in… well,  _ ever, _ in the time that Pete has spent with him at least. The teamsters lose interest, the crew disperses along with the threat of blood. 

“It’s okay,” Patrick says, with such gentleness that Pete assumes his crush is more obvious than he would like it to be. Unless Pete is very much mistaken, the great and unflappable Patrick Stump  _ actually _ blushes. Sometimes it’s nice to share these moments of ritual humiliation. “I’ll see you on set.”

Patrick walks away, his shoes clicking against the asphalt. Pete is forced to note that his ass is not an unpleasant sight. 

“That went well,” Andy observes. 

Pete shrugs and burns and swallows heavily. That went well. 

***

Pete conducts a tense ten minute meeting with both Ways and his agent on the phone.  _ No, _ he assures everyone, he didn’t have second thoughts about the role that might invoke the use of expensive lawyers on both sides.  _ Yes, _ he promises them, he will do better next time. 

“I thought you were up for this,” Gerard says disapprovingly. “I thought you understood what we’re asking from you.”

“We don’t want to re-cast,” Mikey continues. “But you can’t pull that shit with us, you understand?”

Pete defies  _ anyone _ to confront their own precarious sexuality and the mouth of Patrick Stump and  _ not _ have a crisis. He does not say this out loud. Instead he nods like a mature and effacing professional. This is probably the greatest stretch of his acting ability in his career so far.

“I promise I won’t let you down,” he murmurs. 

“See that you don’t,” Gerard snaps. “Patrick was a mess last night over this, Peter. A fucking  _ mess.” _ Pete feels lower than worms right now. “Get out on that set and prove to me that you’re worth the fucking ridiculous quote you negotiated out of my budget.”

“I will,” he says truthfully.

“Okay,” Mikey says, leaning against the wall. “We’re gonna run the scene again, alright? From the top, in a master shot.”

Pete’s guts perform an interesting flip. He reaches out and grabs the back of a chair to steady himself for a moment and then he nods. “Of course. I can do that.”

The script goes like this: Marcus and Louis attend an industry birthday party. Stuffed full of cocaine and hubris, Marcus is the brightest thing in the room with his sharp suit and soft mouth. Louis is out of his depth, overwhelmed by the Hollywood glitter around him. In the gardens of an estate not dissimilar to Pete’s own house, they kiss for the first time. It is  _ so close _ to every movie kiss Pete’s every shot. He has no reason to feel nervous. 

Still, after make up and costume and moving from one location to the other in a sleek, black SUV, Pete finds himself opposite Patrick, the swimming pool casting rippling shadows across his face. His suit is well-cut, the top button popped. Pete bites his lip and takes a swig of water and decides not to behave like an idiot this time.

Then, like an idiot, he opens his mouth. “Are we using tongues?” he asks nervously. 

Patrick rewards him with a slow, Michael Bluth blink. “Excuse me?”

“In the kiss?” Pete asks. “I mean, will there be tongue? I don’t just want to… surprise you with it.”

“Surprise tongue?” Patrick repeats, one eyebrow raised. It is a  _ devastatingly  _ effective communicator of his general amusement at everything Pete says and does. 

“Yeah,” Pete says, then sticks out his tongue in demonstration. “Surprise!” He adds jazz hands.

“In the next week, you have to tolerate me simulating oral sex on you  _ and  _ convincingly fuck me in a shower cubicle and you’re concerned about a bit of  _ tongue?” _ Patrick says mildly.

In neither of those situations will Pete  _ actually _ reveal his penis, much less bury it in any part of Patrick’s body. The tongue is different. It’s a valid concern, Pete thinks. 

“I think it’s a valid concern,” he says. “If you’re going to—”

Patrick’s smile is sweet as it tips one corner of the mouth. “I’ll let you decide.”

“Are we ready?” Ray calls out. Pete almost laughs. 

Behind the camera, Mikey and Gerard sit and glare aggressively at Pete. This is cruel and unusual punishment. His palms begin to sweat. 

“And,  _ action,” _ an undisclosed Way shouts. 

And, beside him, Patrick is gone. Marcus kicks idly at a pebble, Pete’s throat is dry. He fumbles for his line.

“I don’t know, man,” he says softly. “Can’t work be fun.”

Marcus/Patrick looks at him from under the golden fringe of his lashes. “How’s this for fun?” he asks, and then.

And then he kisses Pete. 

Surprised, Pete stiffens. Which is fine, totally natural. Louis is as taken aback by this kiss as Pete, after all. Patrick’s mouth is soft, his hands gently framing Pete’s face as he moves his lips in lazy, lapping motion. Fuck.  _ Fuck,  _ Pete groans and, without thinking, grazes his tongue along the seam of Patrick’s lips. Patrick responds, opens up, meets the push of Pete’s tongue with his own as his fingers tighten in a thick, grippy handful of hair at the nape of Pete’s neck. 

They kiss for half a minute more until Patrick pulls back, grinning. When he says, “Let me show you the best fucking view in Los Angeles,” Pete almost forgets that this is the script. He nods, dopey, lets Patrick take his hand and tug him towards a staircase.

“And cut!”

The spell breaks. Pete drops Patrick’s hand and doesn’t wonder why his own is shaking. 

“You did well,” Patrick murmurs. “I know it’s not easy. Just relax.”

Pete tries his best to do just that. They run the scene three more times until Mikey and Gerard are satisfied and every time is more intense than the last. By the time Gerard calls out the cut, he’s exhausted. Some bizarre and inexplicable voodoo takes hold, however, and propels him across the set to where Patrick is gulping room temperature water and glancing idly through a marked up copy of the script.

“Uh, hey,” Pete begins awkwardly. Patrick looks at him, mouth still wrapped around the neck of the bottle, mouth wet and stretched. Something inappropriate happens beneath Pete’s belt buckle. “So, you want to go for a drink?”

“If you like,” Patrick says with a shrug, reaching for his jacket. Like they’re not sworn enemies. Like they haven’t spent the past two weeks sniping at one another. Like Pete didn’t run off last night mid-scene. Patrick grabs his phone, his keys, his lanyard and nods towards the gate. “This way?”

Pete nods. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to glitterandrocketfuel from whom I shamelessly stole Pete’s dog bacon acting technique. 
> 
> Next week... maybe some kissing for real, if you’re up for it?


	7. Chapter 7

Patrick has not made a lot of dubious choices in his life, he is not what anyone might describe as prone to reckless behaviour. So, he struggles to work out why, exactly, he’s sitting in the passenger seat of Pete Wentz’s loud and obnoxious car, tearing through the darkened streets of Los Angeles at an ungodly hour of the evening.

They shuttle between lanes and leave Patrick’s stomach behind with every jolt of the wheel. Pete has decided that red lights are a challenge. Stop signs mean _ nothing _ to him. This is the closest Patrick has ever come to looking God in the face and offering Them a clean shot. Pete barrels through an intersection on two wheels and cackles the maniacal cackle of a Bond villain, his middle finger raised, and his hand planted firmly on the horn. Like he’s in the right. Like there is any law of the highway that justifies the manoeuvre he just executed. 

There is no cosmic entity that could have prepared Patrick for the suicidal tendencies of a motorised Angeleno. He grips the sissy bar above his head until his knuckles ache and prays that if death can’t be painless, it will at least be swift.

When they swing into a parking spot on Sunset Boulevard, Patrick is no longer certain he can feel his legs. He looks at Pete across the parking brake and says very seriously, “You are a _ hideous _driver.”

Pete laughs. “I drive defensively.”

“We nearly died. Several times.”

“We made it didn’t we?” Pete asks, his smile delving under the zip of Patrick’s jeans and stroking heat into his cock. Pete slides out of the driver’s seat and moves around the car, looking hideously as though he might intend to open the door for Patrick like an Edwardian gentleman. Convinced that he will positively _ implode _ from embarrassment if Pete even _ tries, _ Patrick slams open the door so quickly he almost kills a passing pedestrian. 

“Terribly sorry,” he says.

“Fuck you, asshole!” they snap. Which summarises his Los Angeles experience thus far. 

Patrick scowls. “Wanker,” he says, but quietly. A lot of these people have guns.

“What are you doing?” Pete asks, grinning that dangerous grin.

Patrick sniffs and smooths a wrinkle from his cardigan. “Blending in with the locals. Isn’t it obvious?”

“Oh, for sure,” Pete drawls. “Come with me.”

Patrick has no idea what else he would do if he didn’t go with Pete. They are in the middle of Los Angeles. His wallet has no cash and the keys to his studio accommodation are now trapped in the glove box of Pete’s locked car. There’s probably a lot to do in Hollywood at night with no money. Interesting and entirely not illegal things. He could… wander around in aimless circles for a couple of hours. Or sit beside the car and wait. But neither of those things sound particularly fun and there is a man being noisily arrested on the other side of the street so Patrick shoves his hands into his pockets and hurries to catch up with Pete. 

“You get used to it,” Pete says, nodding towards the police.

Patrick can’t imagine how that could possibly be true. “How long have you lived here?” he asks as their feet hit the pavement in time.

Pete chuckles softly. “Is it that obvious that I’m not native?”

“Well,” Patrick pauses. There is a man in a Huggy Bear outfit lounging at a table outside of Mel’s diner. It doesn’t look like a costume. “Wow. I mean, _ well, _ your accent gives you away a tad.”

“You’re good with accents,” Pete observes, and Patrick shrugs nonchalantly. He is _ very _good with accents. “I moved out here when I was eighteen, stayed ever since. I never really saw the point in moving back to Chicago.”

“Did you move here for uni?” Patrick asks.

“For pilot season. I did a few acting classes but I never went to college.” He says it carefully, like he expects Patrick to probe further and doesn’t relish the idea of the conversation. 

Patrick says, “Okay,” and doesn’t ask any more questions. 

The bar Pete leads him to is down a dark and disgusting alleyway, lodged between a Korean restaurant and a nail bar. There is a strong and overpowering smell of acetone and slightly rotten barbeque, underlined with faint notes of urine. It is the unloveliest place on earth, the antithesis of Disneyland, the kind of place where the LAPD find the bodies of murdered gangsters on a regular basis.

“What?” Pete asks, as Patrick frowns. “What’s wrong?”

“Did you bring me here to murder me?” Patrick asks nervously. He eyes Pete’s muscular thighs thoughtfully and wonders if he can outrun him. Then he continues to eye Pete’s muscular thighs just because they’re muscular and distracting in those drainpipe jeans he insists on wearing. 

Pete sighs and holds his hands up dramatically and says, “Yes, you figured me out. I lure you in with David Foster-Wallace and then _ bam, _ murder alley.”

“Do you murder all of your co-stars?”

Pete raises his eyebrows. “Only the very attractive ones.” And, okay. Patrick is not going to examine _ that _ until he’s alone in his bathroom, later, his hand grippy with shower gel. Pete steps closer and, in a voice that’s probably supposed to be sinister but is so throaty and rich that Patrick woozes back onto his heels, Pete whispers, “And then I do _ terrible _ things to them.”

“Why is there a bar down here?” Patrick asks faintly. It’s hard to concentrate with his blood heading for his groin with determination. “You’re an actual movie star. Don’t you go to classy places? The Viper Room? Marmont?”

Pete considers Patrick for a moment. It’s a sultry look. A look that visibly undresses Patrick in the stuttering streetlight. Pete, apparently satisfied with a figuratively naked Patrick, grins a very wolfish, predatory grin. He steps closer and, drugged, so does Patrick: they are magnetic, dragged together across the stinking concrete and into one another’s orbits. Patrick feels planetary, blasting out with starlight. He touches Pete’s waist under his jacket, over his shirt. 

“Patrick, sweetheart,” Pete says, leaning into the touch, and in spite of the sarcasm Patrick feels his cock twitch. “This is the classiest place on earth.”

In a movie, this would be the part where they kiss. It would be soundtracked by soft pop rock — Snow Patrol, maybe, that perennial first-kiss-favourite — and the master shot would sweep in, would capture the flash of Pete’s pink tongue as he opens his mouth, Patrick’s fingers curling into his shirt collar. Or maybe the hideous bow-chick-a-wow-wow of a terrible porno would begin and Patrick would drop to his knees...

But this is not a movie and Patrick’s life is not fair and a drunk man falls out of a doorway to their left and crashes headfirst into the rubbish bins. He vomits loudly, without discretion. Patrick looks at Pete, blinks, and says, “Classiest place on earth?”

Pete frowns and steps away and Patrick feels the loss down into his marrow. He shrugs. “It’s classier inside,” he insists. “Come on.”

The bar, unsurprisingly, is not classier inside. It’s grimy in the way all hipster things are grimy, the optics on the wall gathering ‘ironic’ dust, the dark room lit by actual, honest-to-God gas lamps. This meets no safety standard issued by any inspector, ever. They do not collect glassware in this bar, so much as allow it form its own independent bacterial colony, sprawling out in a diseased looking forest of glasses rimed with old beer and glazed with cheap whisky. It is a Legionairre’s outbreak waiting to happen. The health inspector would have a field day. Or a heart attack.

“What’ll it be?” Pete asks, leaning against the bar. 

Patrick considers his options, carefully labelled with hand-written cards. Whisky Business. Gin Up. Absinthe-Minded. God, Patrick could stretch a hand in any direction and touch something kitsch. And possibly contagious. He wonders if this a cryptic test of his survival skills and assumes, if so, that the correct answer is ‘nothing.’

“Beer,” he says finally, then eyes the glassware. “_Bottled _beer. Uh. Please?”

“Coming right up,” Pete grins.

“Come here often?” Patrick asks, when Pete finds them an upended cable spool masquerading as a table. 

“I own it,” Pete beams, placing down beer for Patrick and bottled water for himself between them. And of course he owns it. This is exactly the sort of place Pete Wentz would own. “Pretty cool, right?” He adds an open bowl of peanuts. It’s like he’s never heard of E.Coli. 

Patrick is thankful that his leading comment was neutral. “Yes,” he says quickly. Pete looks at him expectantly and it’s clear Patrick is supposed to expand on this. “It’s very… you.”

He hopes Pete doesn’t pick up on the insult.

“Thanks,” Pete beams at him, clearly not picking up on the insult. “I think today went well, by the way, don’t you think today went well?”

Patrick thinks that kissing Pete was the most difficult thing he’s done as an actor. To kiss the man he thinks he might be falling in love with, to have him kiss back, to know it’s nothing more than make believe, this is killing him. He tips back a mouthful of beer and says, “Hmm.” This is as neutral as he’s ever going to get. 

Pete’s eyes are dark, not brown but copper and gold. Patrick thinks about method theory and how it’s possible to become someone else, to fall into a role and keep falling. Is it possible that he’s become Marcus? Compelled to touch Pete’s mouth, he slides his hands between his arse and the barstool and thinks unsexy thoughts. Tax bills; those are frightening. Appearing on daytime television alongside Love Island rejects. Shaving his pubic hair in the tiny, laceration-risking bathroom of his studio-owned apartment.

Distractions are useless when Pete is so very distracting and, in order to stop himself from staring at Pete’s mouth for another second, Patrick decides to engage his own. “You did well today,” he says eventually and then considers lobotomising himself with his beer bottle. _ You did well today? _ What is he? Pete’s sixth form drama teacher, praising his wanky, esoteric Macbeth? He rushes on. “I mean, you know, by your standards. God. I didn’t mean – Your acting was passable. Better than passable. I liked you a lot. It. The acting.”

This is awful. There’s middle class British fumbling and then there’s the kind of awkward failed social interaction that _ Hugh Grant _ would consider this a bit much. Patrick resolutely seizes his tongue between his teeth, stares down at his drink, and considers cramming in a choking hazard-sized handful of peanuts. Better to go down by his own hand than spontaneously combust from sheer fucking foot-in-mouth _ trauma. _

Pete laughs — _ Laughs! _ At _ Patrick! — _and tips his chin into his cupped palm. “No, don’t stop,” he says drily. “This is the kind of writeup you just don’t see in Empire.”

A wise man would make an intelligent observation about Pete’s latent talent. A charming man would say something witty and delightful. Patrick is neither wise nor charming so he drinks. He drinks a lot and far too quickly and no matter how weak the beer is in comparison to the stuff back home in Blighty, he can feel his head begin to spin from the first deep swallows.

“You didn’t punch me,” Pete says thoughtfully, after a while. “You know, this morning?”

Patrick smiles. “Did you want me to?”

“Not really but, like, I heard rumours,” Pete shrugs. “About you.”

_ Everyone _has heard rumours about working with Patrick.

Patrick’s smile wanes a little, his head tipping to the side. “Ah, yes. _ Rumours. _ I’m fond of those.”

“Did you really punch Shane Morris in the face over a script alteration?” Pete asks curiously. 

Patrick squints at his beer bottle like it owes him an explanation. The bar is raucous around them, noisy, everyone is talking about a pitch they made to Nolan or Bruckhemier when it’s obvious they mean they emailed the assistant of an assistant of the man who runs the catering truck. Hollywood is full of people who want to make it _ so aggressively, _ it makes Patrick sad just thinking about how few of them will actually get there. 

“That,” he says softly, “is not what actually happened.”

Pete cups his chin in his palm and looks at Patrick with his lovely eyes. “Do you want to tell me about it?” Pete asks. “I’m, like, totally discreet.”

“There’s not much to tell.”

Patrick, who was barely out of university when the whole sorry incident occurred, has spent a lot of time asking himself if it was really his fault. At the time it seemed obvious: he was a rookie lead and Shane was a reasonably experienced, though not particularly acclaimed, independent director. And he was _ hungry _ for acclaim. Patrick tips down the last of his beer and breathes deeply.

“You don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t want to,” Pete offers. 

“It’s fine,” Patrick shrugs, not because it is, but because it _ should _be. Shane didn’t break his career, he only stalled it, defeated, made sure that Patrick would never progress beyond televised dramas on Sunday evenings. Patrick takes a deep breath. “It was my first lead and my first sex scene. I had no idea what I was doing and none of us really talked about it beforehand which, I realise now, should’ve triggered more red flags than a communist manifesto.”

Pete laughs softly, his mouth blushing pink, his lips damp. 

“Shane was aggressive in a way he’d probably read Tarrantino is aggressive,” Patrick continues. “He probably thought it brought out the best in his cast when all he was doing was making everyone anxious. The female lead — Cassadee Pope, _ lovely _ girl, really, couldn’t find nicer — well, she was as inexperienced as me, so when he started making demands… We couldn’t think of a convincing way to tell him to jog on.”

Pete frowns. “Demands? Demands like what?”

“He’d watched Brown Bunny and Intimacy, seen the reaction at Cannes,” Patrick mutters. Pete’s eyes widen with recognition.

“Holy shit,” he says, quickly. “He wanted you to — what the fuck?”

And, just like that, it’s complicated again. Patrick doesn’t want pity or understanding or for an American outsider who wasn’t there to assuage his guilt. There are a _ lot _ of complicated emotions tied up with Patrick’s relationship with his past, with the career he could have had if he’d kept his mouth shut at the right moments, balanced against the belief that he’d do it all again with hindsight. If only he’d learnt to control his temper, if only he’d been less compulsive. 

“It’s _ fine,” _ Patrick insists, although it isn’t, wasn’t. Men like Morris and Weinstein and all of the others make sure of it. Patrick was the most promising young British actor of his time at that point. He was tipped for the top, the next Christian Bale. He sacrificed _ so many _ of his individual hard lines for Morris, and for what? A throwaway line about a punch up on set and a predetermined reputation that Patrick was _ difficult. _

It wasn’t fucking _ fair. _

“He went too far,” Patrick says quietly to his beer bottle. He can’t look Pete in the eye. “Cassadee and I — we agreed that there were things we’d tolerate and things we wouldn’t and when I told him — very politely, mind you — that I had no intention of having sex with her on camera, that we were both professional enough to give a very convincing performance with the modesty savers firmly in place, he got angry. He said this is what happens when gay men are brought in for straight roles, asked me if I wanted a teamster to get me up for the job. Only he didn’t say ‘gay men,’ _ obviously, _ he said — Well. You can probably guess what he said.”

Pete doesn’t say anything, his eyes on Patrick. 

“When he touched her,” Patrick says, the old familiar anger churning hot in his belly. Slightly drunk and with his guard down, it’s impossible to stop himself from pouring out exactly what he thinks. He looks up, catches Pete’s gaze, defiant, and says, “When he _ fucking touched her, _I twatted the bastard. Nearly knocked his fucking teeth out.”

“Fuck,” Pete says softly.

“Yep. And who do you suppose got the reputation as ‘difficult one to work with’? Not him, that’s for sure. Not Shane Fucking Morris. My agent said it was better to be thought of as high maintenance than as someone who refuses direction. So, here we are. Welcome to the hollow shell of what should’ve been my career. I’m sorry they couldn’t find you a more critically appealing lead for your big Oscar moment.”

It’s a lot, saying it out loud. It drags things to the surface; a shipwreck in reverse. Patrick’s hands shake against his beer bottle and the silence between them is only amplified by how _ loud _ everyone else in this bar feels the need to be. 

“I’m sorry,” Pete mutters. “That’s. A lot. It’s not fair.”

There’s scant comfort in someone else confirming the unfairness of a decision that was so painfully, viscerally _ unfair _ from the start. And Patrick actually had it _ easy. _ At least he wasn’t Cassadee, compelled to bear that monster’s greasy paws on her body for more than a moment. And when he tried to speak out? He was told to shut his mouth. It’s just how it works, they said. It’s just what straight, white men are allowed to do. Didn’t Louis B. Meyer used to grab Judie Garland by the tits when she was a teenager? Didn’t most of those girls go to Weinstein willingly? It’s not assault if she gets something out of it. Directors are Gods and the industry protects them and there was, is, _ nothing _ he could do about it. Morris’s behaviour was not abnormal, that’s what Patrick’s ex-agent used to say, it was Patrick’s _ reaction _ to it that was out of the ordinary. 

“It’s fine,” Patrick says again, firmly this time.

Pete gives him a look of such heartfelt pity that Patrick’s insides wither and curl. He doesn’t want pity; pity doesn’t hand out roles, pity doesn’t win over casting directors when there’s someone more malleable, more open, more _ heterosexual, _ waiting to be picked. They’re never more talented, but talent matters less in the edit. Pete is living proof of that. Patrick has spent his career stoically accepting accusations of divahood. He doesn’t know what to do with understanding. 

“It’s not,” Pete says, shaking his head. “It’s not okay and I’m sorry he did that and got away with it.”

Patrick responds by shoving a handful of peanuts into his mouth, listeria be damned. Fuck it, he thinks, it’s a good day to die.

Pete’s brow furrows. “Hey, can I ask you something totally unrelated?” he asks. Patrick nods slowly, chews. “How did you know you were gay?”

The universe picks up Patrick’s earlier taunting wish for death when he sucks in a breath so hard and unexpected that he propels the peanuts into his windpipe at roughly Mach 10. He chokes, his life flashing before his eyes — a tragedy, he thinks, a depressing Spielberg number in black and white with an orchestral score by John Williams. His eyes stream, which would be concerning but he can’t see much anyway due to oxygen deprivation. Pete thumps him, twice, hard between the shoulder blades until Patrick hawks up a disgusting mouthful of half-masticated nut meat and takes a long and grateful swig of his American pale ale.

“Jesus Fuck,” Pete says, and he is _ still _ laughing, even though it’s not funny, even though Patrick nearly _ died. _ “Are you – God, don’t fucking _ die _ on me, Gerard and Mikey’ll never forgive me.”

“What,” Patrick wheezes, “did you just say?”

Pete looks as uncomfortable as it is possible for a man to look. He is no longer laughing. He ducks his chin into his collar and mutters, “Forget it.”

Patrick doesn’t want to forget it. Patrick would sooner forget his own name. This is important, monumental. This _matters._ _“Why?”_ he shrieks. It’s very aggressive and, when Pete pulls back, visibly alarmed, he breathes deeply and tries it again in the tone a normal human might use. “I mean, um. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know!” Pete snaps back, panicked. “I was just thinking about Louis and, like, he’s bisexual, right? He’s had girlfriends and stuff, so maybe he didn’t figure it out right away? I _ don’t know, _ maybe it doesn’t work like that. Maybe you’re just born _ knowing _ and I’m a fucking idiot and I _ swear to God, _ I didn’t mean any offence. I didn’t.”

Patrick cannot move. This is because Patrick is frozen entirely to his barstool. He clutches his beer bottle and moves to take a long, fortifying swig but finds it empty. His eyes stream gently from his sudden choking fit. No more than twelve inches from Patrick, Pete’s mouth twitches in unhappy, nervy tics. Pete scratches the back of his neck. He gouges his thumb into the label on his bottle and tears it into tiny shreds. He looks at Patrick with such tragic _ loss _ in his eyes that Patrick wants to weep with sympathy or laugh because Pete has _ no fucking clue _ how stupid he sounds. Like he can’t imagine a life without his well-seasoned heterosexuality. Like it’s the only thing keeping him anchored.

Patrick came to terms with his sexuality before he really knew what sexuality _ was. _ There were friends he loved fiercely, jealously, boys from school or cub scouts or cricket club, boys he scared away with the intensity of his need to be around them long before he discovered his dick and what he could do with it. He never imagined himself with a girlfriend. He had no monumental revelation because there _ was _no monumental revelation. He was gay and that was that. It was built into his DNA. 

“I think Louis probably came to his own conclusions,” Patrick says carefully. “I’m not sure you, um, _ Louis, _should attempt to replicate the experience of anyone else. It’s — very personal,” he finishes inelegantly, and wishes he wasn’t blushing and hopes it’s dark enough that Pete won’t notice and prays, fiercely, that Pete will realise that the best way to confirm his own suspicions is to lean in and kiss Patrick on the mouth. Right now. “I’m sorry,” he blusters, instead of holding Pete’s stare. “I’m not much help, am I?”

Pete frowns, his heavy brows dark over his eyes, his thick mouth tight, angry. It’s devastatingly sexy. Patrick’s blush moves south with his pulse and pools in his groin. This is so inappropriate. 

“Right,” Pete says thoughtfully, then he drains the last of his water and his throat contracts, ripples with the motion. Patrick cannot possibly survive this. “Come on. I’ll drive you home.”

***

Patrick has three consecutive crises in the passenger seat of Pete’s silent car. They’re only driving from Sunset to Studio City: his breakdowns are impressive in both velocity and frequency. He presses his head to the cold window and assures himself that he’s not going to vomit violently any time soon. 

Life is complicated but. Pete might be questioning his sexuality but. Patrick wants to say something but. Each thought fills his head like a soap bubble, then pops before it’s complete. Maybe there _ is _ no obvious conclusion. Maybe they’re statements without a but. Maybe Patrick doesn’t have to fill in the gaps because it doesn’t _ really _ have anything to do with him if Pete is suddenly questioning a lifetime of heteronormativity. 

They climb up through Beverly Hills and the car is too hot and Patrick’s had too much to drink and the streetlights cut shadows across Pete’s cheekbones and Patrick wants to do _ something, _ but. He puts his hand on the centre console and tells himself it’s absolutely not an invitation, which is good, because Pete doesn’t pick it up, his own hands neat and precise on the steering wheel. 

_ Now _ he’s the poster boy for responsible driving. 

They pull up outside of Patrick’s neat little apartment building, the street palm-lined and so very _ Los Angeles _ it makes Patrick’s throat ache. He loves what he’s doing but he doesn’t want to be here. He is so, so happy that his career has given him this opportunity, but he would rather be in London. If Pete doesn’t speak to him soon, he might die. Pete frowns through the windscreen and doesn’t say a word. 

When Patrick tries to speak, his seatbelt off and his hand on the door, his voice is weak.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then. Thank you for the—”

Pete cuts him off with a look. A glare. A fucking _ smolder _ that wraps around Patrick’s cock and _ tugs. _In the darkness, Pete’s eyes are the only obvious points of light as he takes Patrick’s face in both big hands and, carefully, like he’s testing for flavour, he plants a neat little question mark of a kiss in the centre of Patrick’s mouth. 

“See you tomorrow,” he says quietly, back in his seat and staring out of windscreen once more. 

Patrick does not climb out of the car because that would require gross motor control and that deserted him the second their mouths touched. How is he supposed to process this _ and _ his central nervous system? How can he make sense of Pete’s questions, Pete’s confusion, Pete’s fucking _ lips? _ So Patrick doesn’t climb from the car, he staggers. He falls onto the pavement in silence with his ridiculous jelly knees and his lips throbbing heat like a tell-tale heart. He touches his mouth with a single fingertip and experiences a deep and enduring _ shock _ that his skin doesn’t slough away with it, burnt. The street smells of gasoline and salt and thick, cloying flowers that don’t grow in London. Pete doesn’t look at him as he puts the car into drive and turns away from the curb and all Patrick can do is watch him drive away; two glowing red tail lights, lost to a bend in the road.

“Bugger,” Patrick says, quietly, and to no one in particular.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things certainly seem to be escalating, don’t you think?


	8. Chapter 8

“Okay, I give in. Why are you ignoring me?”

Pete is not ignoring Patrick. Pete is  _ avoiding _ Patrick, so he won’t have to ignore him. 

“I’m not ignoring you,” Pete says, chewing an egg roll and looking at everything in the room that is not Patrick Stump. “Why would you think I’m ignoring you?”

Patrick frowns. Pete knows this without even looking at him. Patrick exudes a particularly  _ frowny _ aura when he’s frowning, which if often, because Patrick is a particularly  _ frowny _ person. Patrick clatters his plate of pasta on the table next to Pete and takes a bite. He chews with aggression. 

“Well, the biggest clue is the fact you haven’t spoken a single word to me all day.”

“I’ve said lots of words to you,” Pete mutters sullenly. “I’ve spoken many speaks. I just said, like, a whole  _ bunch _ of words to you ten minutes ago.”

Patrick makes a noise of intense human suffering. “I meant words you weren’t contractually obliged to say in front of a camera. You haven’t said any of  _ those _ words, which means you’re not talking to me. That’s a big clue re: ignoring me, don’t you think?  _ I _ think it’s a very big clue.”

Pete does not look up from his  _ fascinating _ egg roll. “I’m conserving my energy for my performance,” he says, with a mulish exhale. “And anyway, a certain Patrick Stump who shall remain nameless told me he didn’t want to be my friend but now that nameless Patrick Stump is upset I’m not talking to him?”

Patrick sighs witheringly. “Oh  _ do _ shut up—”

“I’m trying to shut up! You just told me you don’t  _ want _ me to shut up! I’m getting  _ super _ mixed signals here, you know.”

“You,” Patrick says, pointing at him threateningly with a spork, “are an  _ insufferable _ human.”

Pete pushes his egg roll to one side, no longer hungry. “Yeah, whatever,” he says. “It’s been said.”

They pretend to eat in tense, unfriendly silence. Pete shreds his egg roll like it personally offends him. Patrick spears linguine on his plastic catering spork and pushes it from one side of the paper plate to the other. There is a kiss-shaped elephant in the room and it’s not polite enough to remain in the corner. It’s wedged. Forced between the two of them, a metric ton of awkward, unresolved sexual tension. Patrick is like that, Pete is discovering. Patrick is the mine shaft beneath the tiny crack in the sidewalk of Pete’s insecurity; no one worries about it until it opens up and swallows three sedans, a duplex and a couple of weimaraners.

It’s not that Pete  _ regrets _ kissing Patrick: he does not. And it’s not that he thinks Patrick was diametrically  _ opposed _ to being kissed by Pete: he  _ clearly  _ was not. It’s just… Pete is very uncomfortable with the kissing situation. And also wants to  _ expand _ on the kissing situation. And possibly branch out into other, heavier-than-kissing situations. His life is a very confusing mess of situations right now.

By the time Patrick’s excavated each individual chunk of zucchini from his lunch, Raiders of the Lost Ark-style, and piled them up next to his garlic bread like slimy green lego bricks, Pete is ready for the sweet embrace of death. 

Then, Patrick breaks the silence. “Why can’t they give us proper cutlery?” he asks wistfully. “I  _ miss _ that about the BBC. There’s always decent tea bags, too,  _ and  _ they use real cups. None of this disposable cardboard nonsense. Do you know how much better tea tastes in a  _ real _ cup?” He waves three inches of sauce-smeared plastic in Pete’s general direction. “And what on  _ earth _ am I supposed to do with  _ this?” _

“It’s a spork, dude,” Pete shrugs. “It’s… like a spoon. Only sharper.”

_ “Spork. _ ” Patrick spits it out like a sour taste. “Stupid word. It’s like  _ brunch _ or  _ snood  _ — which, by the way, should be a  _ scood,  _ since we’re combining scarf and hood — or those silly little dogs, jackahuahuas and puggles. Do you know what we called them when I was younger?”

Patrick says this like he’s  _ at least _ three hundred years old. Pete smiles. “No. But I feel confident you’re about to tell me.”

_“Mongrels, _Pete. We called them _mongrels_. When did these ridiculous portmanteaus replace proper English? Americanisms are ruining everything.”

“You guys really need to let the Boston Tea Party _go,”_ Pete says. “But, like, while we’re on the subject? Here’s a little portman_no_ that’s getting tossed around a _lot:_ _Stentz.”_

Patrick pauses, his head tipped to the side like one of those cockapoos that piss him off so much. “What in the merry hell,” he says carefully, “is a Stentz?”

“Stentz. It’s our ship name. Stump and Wentz. Stentz.” He takes a deep, slightly sweaty breath. “People are already speculating about us and the movie isn’t even filmed yet.”

Patrick takes a neat bite of his pasta and chews slowly. If he’s concerned, he doesn’t show it. He is a self-contained wall of solid, immovable  _ comfort _ in his own sexuality. His head it still tipped to one side and Pete — despite knowing it’s a terrible idea — can’t stop staring at his mouth. 

Finally, he sets his spork down and looks at Pete witheringly. “That’s a stupid name,” he says briskly. “I’d have called it Wump.”

Pete is beginning to suspect that Patrick isn’t taking this seriously. Also? He is in  _ no mood _ to deal with Patrick’s inappropriate humour about what, Pete is beginning to suspect, might have been the most emotionally honest moment of his life so far. Instead of the five stages of grief, Pete is experiencing the four stages of unwanted attraction: vague horniness, anticipation, fear, and guilt. 

It wouldn’t be so bad if Patrick understood the deal. That it’s okay for actors to do whatever they want in the privacy of their own home, hotel room, or the bathroom of an exclusive club in North Hollywood and then never speak of it again. Instead, Patrick is bravely, fiercely,  _ naively  _ open about his sexuality. Which is fine. It’s  _ excellent _ and Pete admires him a lot, he  _ does _ ... from the relative safety of his closet, anyway. But now Patrick’s sexuality  _ involves _ Pete and Pete is  _ not _ coping well with the anxiety. This is taking  _ years _ off his life. He’s pretty sure he spotted a grey pube in the shower this morning. Nope. Nope, nope, nope. He makes a strangled noise of distress.

Patrick sighs like Pete is deeply stupid. “Look, I’m not in the habit of outing people who don’t feel ready to come out.”

“I don’t need to  _ come out,”  _ Pete squawks, affronted. Quietly though, and eyeing the boom mic operator half a table away. “I’m not even  _ in.” _

Patrick’s eyebrows streak across his forehead. It’s clear he believes Pete not at all. Pete concentrates on his coffee so intently that he hopes he might become one with it. 

“Maybe you’re nervous about filming,” Patrick offers, after an awkward silence. “I mean, things are getting a bit ruddy physical between Marcus and Louis and… Yes. Yes, it’s perfectly obvious. You’re feeling a bit peculiar about that, aren’t you?”

Pete has never felt less nervous about filming in his life, but he’s not sure how many lifebelts Patrick might have hiding in his Big Book of Not-Gay Excuses so he seizes this one with both hands and holds on tight. 

“Yes!” he declares, with such cheery fortification that the boom mic operator flinches and drops his muffin. “Yes, I am  _ insanely _ nervous. The most nervous I’ve ever been. You could try to find an actor more nervous than me, but you would not succeed.”

“Look,” Patrick says, and Pete does. He looks  _ right at Patrick’s mouth _ and feels his stomach drop off the edge of a cliff constructed of huge sliding boulders of his own structurally precarious heterosexuality _ . _ “I know it’s nerve-wracking. My nerves are… also wracked, and I’ve  _ actually _ done this before. With a man, obviously, not just — not on camera. How about we have a private rehearsal, eh? You could nip across to my flat tonight, run through the next few scenes without an audience?”

This is a dangerous invitation. Pete examines the curve of Patrick’s mouth, the uncreased edges of his calm-ocean eyes. Is this a scheme to get him alone? Patrick blinks back impassively, his face entirely innocent, like he’s never schemed a scheme in his life, like it’s entirely normal to invite the man who kissed him into the privacy of his corporate housing to kiss him again under the well-muscled protection of a script. Maybe it  _ is _ innocent and Pete’s thirsting over his co-star for no good reason. Which would be suitably pathetic but he could live with it. Maybe it’s not and Patrick is just a really good actor. Either way, Pete nods.

“I’d like that. I’ll text you on my way over.”

***

Pete realises as he locks his car that he doesn’t really have a plan. He has a loosely formed collection of crib notes based on thoughts about Patrick’s mouth that he’s hastily patched together on the drive across Hollywood to Patrick’s apartment. He definitely does  _ not _ have A Plan. He didn’t imagine he would find himself in this position. He’s not sure what he’s hoping for.

Patrick opens the door in a faded Purple Rain tour shirt and loose sweatpants looking rumpled and delicious and  _ devastatingly sexy _ with his fluffy hair sticking up in wild and staticky spikes and Pete forgets the plan. Pete forgets the names of his significant loved ones. Pete probably forgets to breathe. 

“I’m at your apartment,” Pete squeaks, sliding up through four octaves and into a pubescent screech like an idiot. 

Patrick grins. “Are you really? Come in.”

Pete clears his throat and holds up the paper bag clutched in his sweaty fist and doesn’t stare at the perky little round of Patrick’s ass as he walks back inside.  _ Much. _ He doesn’t stare at it  _ much.  _ That’s personal growth.

“Drink?” he says, just to prove he has control over his vocal cords. “I brought scotch. Do you like scotch? It’s not bourbon or anything crappy like that, just so you know, it’s real, actual scotch. From Scotland.”

“Scotch?” Patrick echoes. “Yes. Absolutely. A scotch would be lovely.” And he takes the bag and begins to rummage through the kitchenette for glasses. “Um… on the rocks?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Pete looks around. The apartment is small in the same way the interior of a black hole is small. Pete can see a battered leather couch beyond the kitchenette’s counter, a coffee table crammed up against a ten-year-old TV. There are two doors leading off from the main room; one is propped open and Pete can just about glimpse the corner of an unmade bed, a lava-flow of socks spilling out of an open drawer. The other is closed and presumably leads to the bathroom. The window is uncurtained, the security lamp just outside streaking fluorescent light over the ceiling. Pete has never felt less secure in his life. The imitation hardwood under his feet is bleach-spotted and warped. He half-expects to see the faintest memory of a chalk outline and a tattered edge of police tape clinging to the walls. 

Pete is almost certain someone has died in this room. He shrugs off his jacket and hangs it on a hook on the sweaty-looking wall. 

“I… do not have any rocks,” Patrick says, muffled by kitchen cabinet and refrigerator door. He shakes the frigid dust at the bottom of a bag he digs from the depths of the clown-sized under-counter freezer. “Would scotch on the gravel suffice?”

“Yeah, sounds good. God, they couldn’t have sprung for better housing for you?” 

Patrick shrugs verbally. “I don’t spend a lot of time here. I don’t have anything to mix this with, by the way, we’re going to have to fake it and and go straight. Um. Not that you’re not. Uh, straight. I’m sure you’re very straight, but the drink...”

“Straight and true!” Pete declares loudly. “Ha ha ha! Just the straightest!”

Then he spots it. The conversational saviour that will steer them away from Pete’s sexuality. “Oh, you have a guitar? Is that, like, a method thing?”

Patrick looks confused. “Is  _ what _ a method thing?”

“The guitar.” Pete air guitars, just in case Patrick is unsure what a guitar is. Which seems unlikely given the presence of a guitar in his apartment. Patrick continues to look confused, so Pete clarifies for him. “You know? You play a rock star so you live as a rock star?”

Patrick looks around his tiny apartment — the greasy walls, the murder scene floor, the cracked pleather couch — with exaggerated slowness. Drily, he says, “Yes, that’s  _ exactly  _ what I’m doing. The rock star I’ve chosen Meatloaf: The Bankruptcy Years.”

“So, why do you have a guitar?”

“Because… I play the guitar,” Patrick tell him slowly, like he thinks this might be a trick question. 

“Huh,” says Pete. “You should play something. For me.”

“And let the scotch warm up? Chin chin!” says Patrick, nonsensically, sliding a glass of milky ice dust and scotch into Pete’s hand and then clattering that glass with his own with considerable force. Pete knocks it back in one swallow. For courage. 

“So,” Patrick asks. “Where should we pick up?”

Pete — with his whole heartbeat in his whisky-stained throat — steps closer and carefully, softly,  _ slowly _ , takes Patrick’s face in both hands. He only pauses for a moment, a split second to watch Patrick’s eyes widen and then flutter closed, to watch him pass his soft pink tongue over his softer, pinker mouth. Then, Pete leans closer, crushes them together chest, hips, thighs, and with his lips close enough to brush against Patrick’s soft and frowny mouth, he whispers, “How about here?”

He kisses the hard edge of Patrick’s frown and imagines it softens _ . _ Patrick’s mouth blooms open under Pete’s, his tongue a soft and curious curl. Pete doesn’t want this kiss to end. Or, he does, but only so he can kiss Patrick again, splay his hands across the breadth of Patrick’s shoulders and pull him in and learn how his mouth tastes from every possible angle. 

This kiss is sweaty palms and parking lots in Chicago and lazy summer days under the bleachers with male taste on Pete’s tongue and stubble reddening his chin. Pete melts into this kiss. Pete could  _ live _ in this kiss and need nothing more to sustain him. This kiss leaves him so brilliantly unafraid, so lit up from the inside like a Jack-o-lantern as he digs his thumb into the centre of Patrick’s chin and holds his mouth wide and open for lazy exploration. 

It is… an exceptionally good kiss. 

_ Wow, _ he thinks, and Patrick laughs and Pete must have said that out loud and in any other situation that might embarrass him but right now all he does is grab Patrick by his faded cotton collar and kiss him again. If their first kiss was gentle, this is starving. They kiss to consume, hands clutching hair, shirts, belts. Patrick gets a deliciously solid thigh between Pete’s and presses up. Pete makes a noise like getting hit by a Mack truck. Yes to this. Yes to more of this. Yes to  _ all _ of this.

Pete opens his eyes and Patrick smiles a dazzle at him and takes his hand and squeezes softly and breathes heavily. 

“You’re right. Wow.”

And Pete lunges with the force and unpredictable trajectory of a ballistic missile. Eager, he folds at the knees and aims for the bleach-spotted crime scene hardwood but Patrick catches him and pulls him back to his mouth. His lovely, remarkable mouth. “Keep kissing me,” he begs, breathless. “Just keep kissing me. You should never,  _ ever _ stop kissing me.”

This time, it’s a kiss like a fairytale, the kind of kiss that wakes from enchanted sleep. The kind of kiss that ruins all other kisses that came before it and all that might follow. Pete drinks Patrick in with long and grateful sips and wonders how he didn’t realise he was thirsty for this until his mouth is soaked and wet with it. Pete wonders if each kiss with Patrick will be this new, this invigoratingly exciting. He has so many practical tests to run, so much data to collect and store and analyse and —  _ oh! _ — Patrick does something quick and clever with his tongue against the roof of Pete’s mouth. Pete’s thoughts, like syrup, spill over slow and sticky.

“We should talk about this,” Patrick gasps.

Pete disagrees. “We abso-fucking-lutely should  _ not.” _

They shed their clothes with urgency. Their progress is mapped in a trail of Pete’s shirt, Patrick’s sweats, Pete’s jeans caught and trailing from one foot. They exchange Pete’s shorts for Patrick’s shirt and Pete stares. Because Patrick is  _ beautiful.  _ So pale, so sturdy and lovely and undeniably masculine with coppery hair that fans over his chest before streaking down to a narrow trails that curls beneath his navel and into his shorts. 

Patrick cups Pete’s chin, tilts his eyes up. “Is this okay?”

And Pete… doesn’t know what to say. He stands in front of Patrick, aching with feeling, desperate with want, and can’t find the words to explain. He wants this, and what a miracle! For a man who has spent his whole adult life half in hiding, he is so inexorably  _ unafraid _ . He wants to say this, to reassure Patrick that he has issued a full-body consent to anything that Patrick wants to do, but can’t think of a single word to say. So he kisses him. He pours his ‘yes’ into this kiss. 

They meet the edge of Patrick’s mattress before Pete registers that they’ve moved and then they drop like grateful collapsing and fall, a controlled detonation at the knees. They land with Pete on top, with his thighs spread in grateful invitation over Patrick’s. Patrick whispers  _ Pete, _ and  _ Pete, _ and  _ Pete  _ in breathless gasps into Pete’s mouth. Pete gets his hands on Patrick and strokes his pale and lovely hip bones, the gentle warmth of his stomach, rubs his thumbs over the tight, pink pebbles of Patrick’s nipples. Patrick parries with his fingers in the nervy valley of Pete’s spine, his fisty grip on the round of Pete’s ass. 

Their hips move demented. Pete grinds his aching cock into Patrick through twin barriers of cotton. He feels the thickened rope of Patrick’s answering erection and grins. Yes to this. 

Patrick’s hips stutter. “Wait—”

Pete kisses him. “No, you listen to me.” He braces back on his elbow and cups the weight and heft of Patrick’s cock through his shorts. The grunt torn from Patrick’s throat is primal. “I’m not an idiot and I know what this means. You don’t need to convince me. I’m  _ clearly _ fully convinced.”

To prove his point, he reaches forward for Patrick’s shorts. And yes. Oh God  _ yes, _ Pete can look. Pete  _ wants  _ to look. His thought process is buffering, snagging on Patrick’s dick, Patrick’s dick,  _ Patrick’s dick. _ He’s so delirious with the need that he forgets to be nervous, his hand snagging greedily on the band of Patrick’s shorts, tugging down over his thick and lovely thighs and then, and then…

Pete pauses. He looks at the plump, pink cock that’s popped free, sees Patrick smooth and thick and nested in coppery pubic hair. This isn’t the first time Pete’s been with a man, but it  _ is _ the first time he’s really  _ looked _ at one, seen the aggressive maleness of someone else’s cock. There’s something comforting in the familiarity of it, he thinks, or maybe it’s just the way Patrick looks at him. He waits to feel something — the familiar nauseous guilt, the blood-humming  _ fear _ of discovery — but nothing comes. Pete runs the back of his knuckles lightly over this cock that isn’t his, this paler, thicker, uncut incarnation of the same basic biological blueprint, and doesn’t feel afraid. 

Pete curls his hand around Patrick’s cock, rubs his thumb over the bunched velvet of his foreskin, pulls it back and dips into the slushy mess at the tip. He strokes Patrick how  _ he  _ likes to be stroked but backwards, a Looking Glass handjob where his thumb isn’t in the right place and the angle feels foreign. “Oh,” Patrick whispers, watching, “Jesus fucking Christ, Pete.” Pete brings the heel of his hand over the head on the upstroke and Patrick collapses. Pete decides he likes Patrick breathless. 

The world tips, and when Pete recalibrates, he is no longer staring at the comforter and Patrick, but at the lazy rotation of the fan on the dull and spidered ceiling above them. There is no dick in his hand but there  _ is _ a hand on  _ his _ dick, which is a wonderful turn of events. Patrick grins at him wickedly.

“Now now,” he murmurs. “Turnabout is fair play, you greedy thing.”

That accent. Like ice cream, Pete melts into the slow, steady pulls on his cock. “Fuck. Fuck you’re  _ really _ good at that.”

“Patience and practice.”

Patrick considers him like a map of Pete Wentz, like there are points of interest and national landmarks to discover with each biting kiss. He caresses each one with lips, tongue, fingers; the twist of thorns around Pete’s collar bone, the impossible sensitivity of his nipples, the crest of a rib, the dark dip of his navel. Pete’s dick curves obscene, the wet and messy head grazing under Patrick’s chin as he licks each line of ink between Pete’s hip bones. 

He meets the apex. The rude drooling length of Pete’s hot, red dick curving obscene to the heavens. Their eyes meet electric. Patrick’s thumb grazes softly over the dark, nested hair at the base of Pete’s cock; a request for permission. Pete makes a sound, a low, growling whimper at the back of his throat, and knots his fingers in the sandy hair at the nape of Patrick’s neck. Yes to this, too. 

“You are… remarkable,” Patrick murmurs. And then, with veneration, he takes Pete’s swollen dick into his mouth. 

Pete’s world winnows down to this: to Patrick’s mouth on the thick and nervy crown of his cock, to tight wet suction and the tricky, interesting things Patrick can do with his tongue. This is not Pete’s first blowjob. It’s not even his first of the month. But God,  _ God, _ Patrick’s mouth is a magnificent thing. 

“Mmmphhh,” Pete says, eloquently, and slides his hand into the grip of Patrick’s on his hip and fucking  _ hangs on. _

Pete’s hips buck involuntary, his cock hitting the back of Patrick’s throat with pleasure, with force. The universe is contained in Patrick’s mouth, in his throat, in the way he slides down and down and down until his nose bumps the bristled musk of Pete’s pubic hair. Pete’s eyes squeeze shut only because he knows that if he looks, if he watches Patrick’s sinful mouth stretched wide around his wet cock, he won’t be able to control himself.

Patrick sucks him stupefied, until Pete’s groin is hot and wet with Patrick’s spit and his own leaking pre-come. He drags Pete up to the golden horizon of his orgasm time and time again just to tip him back from the brink with a slow suck, a steady squeeze. Pete has never thought about edging before but now, his dick throbbing furious in the tight, wet squeeze of Patrick’s throat, he decides he likes it.

“I think I might be gay,” he tells Patrick seriously. “I think I might be really,  _ really _ fucking gay.”

Patrick laughs and doesn’t take him seriously at all. He pulls off, wet mouth dripping with spit and pre-come and kisses Pete tasting of cock. Pete’s dick throbs heavy with the loss of Patrick’s mouth. “Really?” he asks conversationally. “All men are gay with a mouth on their cock. Here, let me…”

And then. There are fingers on Pete’s asshole, slick with lube. He pauses. 

The hesitation is involuntary, the tightening of muscle instinctive. Yes, he’s done this himself, in the shower, his fingers slippery with shower gel, his head against the tile and his mind endlessly, carefully blank. Like if he thought about it, fantasised about it, imagined who it might be with broad male knuckles then the thin and permeable membrane of his carefully maintained straightness might give and break. But this time Pete wants this. He does, he  _ does.  _ He wants this more than he wants to carry on living — Pete is not sure he  _ can _ carry on living if Patrick stops — but there are still instincts. This has always been the breaking point. This is… a  _ barrier. _

“Pete?” Patrick says doubtfully. Pete snaps. Flooded with horny bravery, he grabs Patrick’s wrist with certainty, holds him steady and slowly, slowly, slowly, pushes down to take Patrick inside. 

It feels…  _ oh _ , blissful fullness. He spreads his legs and takes a second and rides the crook of Patrick’s fingers with lusty abandon. His mouth is thick with drool, his eyes roll back and Patrick mouths at his hip with vital gratitude. He licks the sweat from Pete’s skin like he wants to absorb him in every way he can. He bites upward, leaves bruises on Pete’s collar bone that blend with the ink, squeezes the skin between his teeth like he can pulp out the taste of the thorns. Pete is a dizzying blur of blood and heat and desperate arousal.

Patrick adds a third and Pete’s body takes it greedily. The stretch burns but not enough. Pete digs hearty divots into the meat of Patrick’s ass and begs for more, more,  _ more. _

Patrick looks at him, buried down to the web of his fingers. The looks is cautious, considered,  _ hopeful. _ The need for more has only one obvious solution. Pete eyes the curve of Patrick’s dick and reaches for him with expectation. 

“Yes,” he hisses. “Yes this. This,  _ this.” _

“Pete…” says Patrick, and his eyes hold Pete’s and Pete’s churning blood is so filled with need and confusion and  _ feelings _ that he doesn’t know what to say. 

Isn’t this always his issue? His compulsive inability to address the things that scare him, his wish to be remarkable but only in the most acceptable way. And here is Patrick, kind considerate Patrick who thinks of Pete even when he’s  _ literally _ inside of him, when his dick is hard and throbbing against Pete’s thigh. As always, he takes the easy route and catches Patrick’s face in his hands and kisses him softly. He puts a lot into this kiss. He does not wish to be misunderstood. 

They fumble for a condom and it doesn’t cooperate, like Pete has seventeen fingers and all of them are fat and useless. Pete tears it with his teeth and tastes powdery latex and bitter lube and Patrick’s dick looks huge now Pete knows it’s going to be  _ inside of him _ , improbable, a cartoonish thing curving up and up against his belly and Pete is laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. Then Patrick kisses him, pushes him back and down into the mattress and plucks the dark, tight bead of his nipple as he lubes his own dick. Pete chokes on his laughter, moans, keens, whines. He grinds his hips and lifts his ass and begs into the soft, pale yolk of Patrick’s throat. Patrick touches the slicked, wrapped head of his straining monster-cock to Pete’s hole and pauses, pauses, pauses.

“Now,” Pete hisses, savage demand. 

Patrick presses forward, the thick blunt head of him pushing Pete open, juuust open. He is not inside. He stops. He looks at Pete with his hands gripping whiteknuckled into the sheets either side of Pete’s head. In the gloom, his eyes are a thousand different shades of grey. “We stop if you need to.”

Pete’s eyebrows quirk. Tender with nerves, he is only half as cocky as he pretends to be. “God, you have to  _ start _ to be able to  _ stop. _ Get your ass in gear, Stump.”

“You daft sod,” Patrick says with unimaginable fondness, his hand sliding around the back of Pete’s knee and lifting him up. His hips move with precision and even here, away from the cameras and the clapper board, Patrick is a perfectionist. Muscle resists, gives, stretches and...

And —  _ Oh! —  _ Patrick is inside of him. 

It is… astonishing. Pressure at first. Screaming resistance as Patrick waits, slides, waits, slides. Pete doesn’t move beneath him, just lets himself be filled and Patrick’s dick is long and thick and endless until he stops. Their hips flush. Pete’s brow furrows, his eyes unblinking on Patrick’s eyes. 

He shifts and Patrick’s solid cock moves inside of him. “Oh!” he gasps, surprised. It’s not painful. He imagined it would be. “Fuck,” he whispers, “your dick feels fucking  _ huge,”  _ and Patrick laughs, strained, which feels even stranger. Then, “Move,” Pete says, curious.

Patrick moves. He rocks his hips slowly back then pushes forward, dragging against Pete’s slick and tender insides. Patrick rolls his sweaty forehead against Pete’s and kisses him soft on the mouth and Pete is  _ being fucked. _ Dizzy, he sinks his nails into Patrick’s hips and holds him like a lifebelt. He clings to him like he’s the fulcrum of the fucking universe. He is filled with need. 

“Harder,” he whispers and Patrick smiles against his mouth. He does not fuck Pete harder, but he angles up his hips and lets his tip find the golden edge of that gland buried inside of Pete. Pete makes a sound somewhere beyond the recorded human vocal register. His blood is static. That secret place. Patrick’s thighs move with precision, his cock catching the swollen point of Pete’s spot with every thrust. Pete’s thoughts turn slushy, opaque, his body a single throbbing nerve that runs from his prostate to his cock to the molten centre of the earth, up through the roof and into space. He feels Patrick’s smile widen, his cool, slick teeth on Pete’s lip. That smug fuck. He doesn’t fight fair.

Pete curls a flexing hand around Patrick’s bicep, lets the other reach down and touch where they’re joined. Where he’s swollen and sticky and sore in good-interesting ways. He lies back on the mattress, a mostly useless collection of limbs and hands, and lets Patrick fuck him soundly past the plane of sensibility. His lazy hand slips to his cock, strokes slowly as he looks into Patrick’s endless riptide eyes and thinks  _ fuck, I’ve wasted so much time _ and  _ God, I’m glad I waited for you _ and they tangle together somehow, twisting like vines through crumbling brick to become  _ Fuck, I’ll waste no more time waiting. _

“Fuck,” Pete breathes. “I didn’t know I was allowed to want this.”

Patrick’s grin is a crooked twist. “Didn’t know you wanted me, too. Would’ve said something sooner if you’d been less— Ah!— less fucking ridiculous.” Patrick’s hips speed and that warm, familiar pressure builds,  _ builds, _ low in Pete’s groin; Pete groans. 

“God, fuck, I’m so close — Please!”

Patrick grunts and wraps his hands over Pete’s on his full-to-bursting dick and gives the last… throbbing… strokes… until… 

“Fuck, Patrick, fuckfuck _ fuck, Patrick!” _

_ Ah!  _ Oblivion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I posted this in a huge rush because I'm desperately trying to hammer out my Trick or Pete fic by Halloween and I may be panicking a teensy, tiny bit. I might have to slow this down to fortnightly updates until November. Might. We'll see.
> 
> What's Trick or Pete, you ask? Well, [this post here](https://peterickcreationschallenge.tumblr.com/post/188220436779/welcome-ghouls-and-goblins-to-the-third-annual) should explain all the details...


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I had to miss last week - work and Trick or Pete are conspiring to kick my ass and leave me with no spare time whatsoever. Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Patrick wakes hungover, sore and — importantly — alone.

He sits up slowly in bed and blinks around the room and sees his tracksuit bottoms, his underwear, and his t-shirt puddled on the floor. Nothing else. The sheets are cold on the other side of the bed. The only sign that anything happened at all is the spent condom caught on the lip of the wastepaper basket next to his bedside table. He checks his phone with feigned casual indifference that no one is around to see. He looks for a text message, a note. He is unreasonably hurt to find neither.

Hurt, but not shocked.

So, what to do in his silent, un-Pete-filled apartment but dress in last night’s boxers, make a cup of tea, and stare meditatively at the BBC app on his phone? It feels like a very British way of dealing with things. Patrick doesn’t know what else to do. 

Patrick fell asleep watching Pete sleep which, he thought, was quite the loveliest way to drift off. He touched Pete’s face and hair and chest and abs in tiny, greedy little motions, rubbed his thumb along the seam of Pete’s lips, the treasured golden hollow of his throat and thought,  _ You ridiculous, astonishing thing. _ Pete huffed in his sleep, rolled over and tossed a bare arm over Patrick’s middle, pressed his nose to Patrick’s ear and sighed with blissful contentment. So, Patrick did the reasonable thing that a reasonable man would do and kissed Pete softly on his sleep-warm mouth and whispered, “I think I’m falling for you.” 

And then he woke up alone. It’s not like Patrick was picking out china patterns or shortlisting wedding venues, but he didn’t imagine Pete would slip away like a…

Like a one night stand.

Patrick curls his hands around his mug of tea, suddenly chilled. Of course, everyone knows the rumours about Pete Wentz and his co-stars. A different showmance for every movie, played out in agonising detail in the pages of every gossip magazine in the Western media. It’s how he met his ex-wife, after all; a romance so quick and fiery it burnt like phosphorous and died away to nothing before the director’s cut DVD found its way onto Amazon.

The itching burn of humiliation curls through Patrick’s gut. His cheeks bloom hot with it. He paws his sweaty brow in horror. He stares down into the steaming heat of his English breakfast tea and counts back slowly from one hundred and tells himself, if he makes it to zero without literally imploding from the embarrassment of being a notch on Pete Wentz’s bedpost, he can reward himself with a croissant from catering.

By eighty-one, he’s managed, somehow, to talk himself out of the worst-case scenario of finding an article about his sexual performance in the pages of Gawker. Not that he thinks it would be a bad review: the sex is the one thing Patrick is not insecure about. It was top notch. Mind blowing, in fact. Patrick doesn’t have a huge selection of recent experience to make comparisons but it’s slipped easily into his top 10. Not that he reads Gawker either, mind you, but Pete probably does. Pete however, has significantly more to lose by sharing the details of his newly-minted bisexuality than Patrick does.

By sixty-seven, the risk of a sudden-onset, mortification-related asthma attack has receded to nothing more than a fleeting possibility.

By forty-three, and breathing normally again, he tells himself that maybe he’s overthinking this.

A normal person  _ probably _ would’ve left a note, or a text, or written a message on the mirror in toothpaste. Or… spent the night and have been there in the morning to enjoy the frankly  _ exquisite _ wake-up blowjob Patrick had planned. But Pete cannot be described by any loose or specific philanthropic guidelines as a ‘normal person.’ Pete is to normal what Seth Rogan is to the Academy Award committee: he is probably vaguely aware of its existence, but they don’t associate socially.

Chances are, Pete went for a morning run. Or sunrise yoga on a mountainside. Or whatever else it is that ridiculous Californians do and then post on Instagram with meaningful captions and aggressively flattering filters.

(He checks Instagram — casually, though. Pete has posted nothing at all since the night before. His social media presence is a yawning void from the moment he crossed the threshold into Patrick’s apartment. This doesn’t mean that Pete  _ isn’t  _ up a mountain doing yoga, it just means he’s doing it inauspiciously, in a very un-Pete-like fashion. This is fine. Everything is fine.)

When Joe knocks on the door, Patrick has talked himself down from his metaphorical ledge. He has showered, shaved, and dressed in a striped crew neck and cardigan combination that he thinks looks rather charming. He brushes his hair without prompting. He selects a neat little fedora to hide the fact he has no idea how to style his own hair. He splashes on aftershave and hazards a lucky squirt of deodorant down the crotch of his jeans. He tells himself that he’s absolutely  _ not  _ dressing up for Pete. 

“Um, that’s a new part of the Patrick Stump beautification program,” Joe says dubiously. “Actually, Patrick Stump’s beautification program is a completely new development.  _ Why  _ are you beautifying?”

Patrick thinks about this with his head cocked to one side. “I always dress like this,” he shrugs airily, lacing the boots that wardrobe will remove from him as soon as he arrives on set. “This isn’t a new thing, stop making it weird.”

“If you say so,” Joe says. “The deodorant to the balls is definitely something I could’ve lived without seeing. I haven’t even had my coffee yet.”

Patrick hands Joe a travel mug and frowns. “Here,” he says. “Sugary milk with half a teaspoon of coffee.”

“You are the  _ best _ boss,” Joe says, with feeling. “Do you make lunches, too?”

Patrick grins. “Don’t push it.” He begins to whistle as he searches out wallet and keys.

“You’re in a strangely good mood this morning,” Joe observes.

Patrick smiles blandly. “I’m always the very vision of verdant and bursting joy. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed.”

“Yeah, you’re a regular ray of sunshine. I only have to — Hold up. Wait a minute.”

Joe sits at the edge of Patrick’s couch and glances at the coffee table. Then, he performs a slow and exaggerated double take. He stares at the two empty tumblers, their glass rimed with whiskey. His lips move silently. He looks up with a sly twist of his mouth. “Oh,  _ Patrick,”  _ he says, with glee.

Patrick begins to feel uncomfortable. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Oh,  _ Pa-trick,” _ Joe repeats in singsong, like an arsehole. “Did someone have  _ company _ last night? Because, like, that would explain  _ so much.” _

“No,” Patrick says quickly. “I have never had company in my life. I’m practically a recluse. ‘Look at him,’ they say, when I walk down the high street, ‘there goes that hermit again.’” 

He very determinedly does  _ not _ think about Pete’s whiskey eyes. His curious, unhurried touch. The way he looked as he fell apart under Patrick. He doesn’t think about these things because if he does, he’s going to start blushing and— 

“You’re blushing,” Joe says gleefully. Which is unnecessary. Patrick  _ knows _ he’s blushing. His blush is probably visible from the fucking  _ Mars Rover.  _

“I had  _ one _ drink, and then I had another and forgot I’d already used a glass. That’s all.” His blush may have escalated to imminent spontaneous combustion, there is no obvious way to tell without a visual inspection. He closes his eyes and waits to see if he can smell smoke. Joe’s grin is audible. “Stop looking at me like that,” Patrick shrieks operatically, hitting a register known only to dolphins and dogs, “it’s none of your fucking business!”

Joe laughs filthily. “You dirty little man,” he says, and that’s it, Patrick’s whole body ignites. He immolates from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes and curses his pale Celtic heritage for flaming so violently, unflatteringly  _ red. _ Whoever said blushing is limited only to the parts of the body uncovered by clothing is free to stage an examination and rescind every scientific qualification they have ever been awarded. Patrick is blushing on parts of his body he didn’t even know he had. If he concentrates  _ very hard _ , he thinks there might be a spot just above his left elbow that isn’t currently engulfed in flame, but that could be nothing more than his nervous system shutting down in stages.

“Your face!” Joe smirks. “Oh God, you have to tell me  _ everything. _ Who was it? Was it that boom mic guy? The hair stylist? Fuck, did you go on  _ Grindr?” _

_ “What?  _ No! I have never ground a Grindr in my life!” This is a lie. Patrick has cheerfully ground on many a Grindr. This is not something he wishes to share with Joe Trohman. “Wait, did the hair stylist say something about me? No. I don’t care! Stop talking about my sex life!”

Joe smirks. “Oh yeah? So you’re admitting you have a sex life, status: current?”

“I admit fucking  _ nothing.” _

“Mmhmm. Look me in the eye and say that.”

Patrick glares at a spot above and to the left of Joe’s head. This is fine. He is a serious actor. All he has to do is channel a role. Right now, he is playing the part of a Cluedo character about to murder his assistant, in the living room, with the TiVo remote. 

He levels a prim look at Joe. Like a prim sunset over a lobster farm. Something very prim and very red. “This is inappropriate.”

“Depends what you did to him.” Joe waggles his eyebrows, extends both pointer fingers and nudges them together. Like he’s implying gay men simply gently bounce the tips of their penises against one another until they achieve orgasm in roughly ten to eleven  _ years.  _ “Are you a, wait, I googled this, a service top? Or a  _ power bottom?” _

“That’s horrifying. You’re officially  _ banned _ from google.”

Joe continues, like a terrible Dr Seuss poem. “Was he a bear? Or a cub? Or a twink? Will you see him again, tonight, do you think?”

“We need to get to the studio,” Patrick says tightly. 

“You lead the way, I’m happy to go,” Joe rhymes cheerfully. 

The only reason Patrick doesn’t murder Joe with the Scotch bottle, is because he’s not sure Pete will visit him in prison.

***

Patrick goes to his trailer as soon as he arrives at the studio. He tells himself that this is because it’s  _ his _ trailer and therefore there’s no reason at all for him  _ not _ to go there. His name is on the door. It’s a logical thing to do. But really, it’s because Pete is usually in Patrick’s trailer, thumbing through his copy of Consider the Lobster and smiling his devilish smile and Patrick wants to sink into his orbit. The night before feels unreal, in the way dreams are unreal, the way they fade away without thought. Patrick wants Pete to prove that it happened. 

Unfortunately, Patrick’s trailer is utterly devoid of Pete, or anyone else for that matter.

“Oh,” Patrick says, to no one, disappointed. “Hmm.”

But there is  _ some _ proof of Pete’s existence. His tattered paperback copy of Consider the Lobster is still on the spare chair next to Patrick’s, which gives Patrick a perfectly valid, normal reason to go and find Pete. Again, confounded logic dictates that this makes sense: He’s just returning the book, that’s all. That is a perfectly reasonable thing for a friend to do. 

He’ll think about whether or not they qualify as friends when his heart stops throbbing out the drumbeat to Jimi Hendrix’s  _ Fire  _ behind his ribs. 

For all their time spent on set together, for all Patrick is the one who’s attempted to keep Pete at arm’s length and out of his personal life, Patrick has never been in Pete’s trailer before. It looms above the others, a villa of a thing, monstrous and out of place. Patrick approaches this venture with hesitancy, with caution. He knocks, first, stares at Pete’s name on the unglamorous piece of printer paper taped to the door, at the star Pete has added around it in jagged strokes of black marker. Nothing stirs. If Pete is inside, he doesn’t answer. 

Feeling less like a friend and more like a stalker, Patrick hesitantly tests the door handle. It gives, unlocked, and he plans a speech about security protocol and the reason they’re all issued keys and lanyards and security passes in the first place. He pushes the door and leans inside. 

“Hello?” he calls softly, with caution. “Anyone home?”

No one answers. The air inside is chill with air-conditioning and the smell of new leather. It’s like walking into a hospital, or a restricted museum exhibit, half-assembled. Patrick feels like an intruder, probably because he technically  _ is. _ He clears his throat and pats the nearest countertop apologetically. The trailer doesn’t seem to mind either way. No alarms shriek, no one bears down on him from the depths of Pete’s closet (Oh! Irony!) so Patrick takes a deep breath and, pulling the door closed behind him, he steps inside. 

Aware of the newness of the carpeting, he kicks off his shoes. He looks around. He doesn’t touch anything, for the moment at least. There are cozy chairs, a bookshelf crammed with well-thumbed paperbacks, a television of ludicrous proportion fixed to the wall. There’s a creamy Ibanez bass guitar propped in one corner, it’s bodywork freckled gold. Possibly. It’s hard to tell, swaddled in three hoodies, a muscle tank and a snapback. There are dirty socks on the floor, a plate crusted with ketchup balanced on the arm of the couch, a state of the art Macbook abandoned on the coffee table. The place is rich with the smell of Pete’s cologne. 

It’s like walking into a howling gale of  _ Pete and Pete and Pete. _ Patrick literally cannot move without touching something, smelling something, he is soaked to his marrow in Pete, rich like blood, sweet like cinnamon. Patrick has spent every second since he woke up alone telling himself that he doesn’t care what happens next, that it doesn’t matter.

It does matter.

It matters  _ so much.  _

Patrick shuffles forward and drops down onto the couch and — without thinking,  _ carefully _ without thinking — picks up one of Pete’s discarded t-shirts. He glances around and assures himself that he’s alone. Then, feeling skeevy and foolish and unbearably  _ dirty, _ he buries his nose in the armpit and breathes deeply. 

God. Fucking  _ God.  _ Pete’s scent. Warm and sharp and spicy-sweet like saffron. It hits him with the force of a category 5 hurricane. It  _ batters _ him. Patrick wants to devour this scent. He wants to pile everything Pete owns in the middle of the floor and roll around in it until his own clothes smell the same. He wants to bottle it and wear it like cologne. He woozes, drunk on it, and feels his dick fill with a languid, pulsing throb. His groan is resonant, pushed up through his stomach and chest and spilling filthily out of his mouth. 

And then, with theatrical fucking timing, a familiar voice from the doorway says, “Ahem.”

Eyes wide and heart rabbiting, Patrick scrambles upright on the couch. This has the unfortunate/fortunate side-effect of allowing the shirt to fall from his eyes but not his nose. It’s unfortunate, because it means he has to look at Pete while literally caught in the act of sniffing his dirty laundry. It’s fortunate because Pete is leaning on the living room door frame in nothing but a towel, his hair soft and wet from the shower, his skin pricked with a hundred tiny jewelled points of light trapped in cascading water droplets. They follow the aggressive grooves of Pete’s chest, abs, groin, seep down into the indecently small towel wrapped around his hips. He is the most beautiful, the most  _ arresting  _ thing Patrick has ever seen. 

Patrick makes a soft, involuntary sound. Patrick wonders, if he presses the t-shirt to his mouth and nose hard enough, if he can asphyxiate himself and never have to look another human being in the eye ever again. He seriously considers clicking his heels together three times, but doesn’t, because he has no desire to leave this room. 

“Fuck,” he says, and means it _ . _ Then, like a man without an erection and a t-shirt pressed to his face, he says, “Okay, it’s not what it looks like.”

“Good, because it looks like you’re sniffing my underwear and touching yourself,” Pete says, amused.

“It’s your  _ t-shirt,” _ Patrick mumbles. His skin  _ stings _ from the force of his blush. “It’s definitely not your underwear. I’m not a deviant.” He doesn’t remove his hand from his crotch: better to be thought of as a stealth masturbator than reveal the throbbing evidence of his erection. 

“You’re right, sniffing my  _ t-shirt _ and touching yourself is a thing that normal people do,” Pete says. “Are you coming out from under there at any point?”

Patrick yanks away the shirt like he’s tearing off a band aid and stuffs it down between the couch cushions like a particularly stupid drug dealer in the face of imminent arrest.  _ If you can’t see it, you can’t prove anything, _ his gesture says stoutly, a defence admissible in not a single court of law on either side of the Atlantic. He clears his throat and takes a deep, calming breath and says, “Hello.”

“Hi,” Pete says. He doesn’t move from the doorway, just stands and drips and looks astonishingly beautiful. When it becomes apparent that Patrick’s vocal cords, tongue, and higher cortical function have all abandoned him entirely, Pete continues, “Can I help you with something?”

There are many things Pete could help Patrickwith: his errant erection, for example. He wants to dive under Pete’s towel and take up residency there, where Pete is warm and damp and salty. He wants to get on his knees and suck Pete’s cock until Pete can’t breathe. He has no idea if this is something he has permission to do. They require ground rules. A sensible adult discussion.

Instead, Patrick thrusts the copy of Consider the Lobster into the space between them with such violent enthusiasm that he almost loses an eye. “I brought this!” he shrieks, hysterically. “It’s your book!” 

“I can see that,” Pete tells him. He still doesn’t move. “Anything else?”

Pete stares at Patrick from his golden eyes. He smells of steam and shower water, not a trace of Patrick left on his skin. Patrick wets his lips and eyes the knot of Pete’s towel. “You tell me,” he says faintly, most oxygenated blood in his system flowing with determination, trapped in his quivering cock. “Is there anything you’d like me to do?”

Pete frowns. “You’re acting weird,” he accuses Patrick, and maybe Patrick is, with his dick trapped between his fist and his inseam, with his guts like honey and his pulse trapped entirely beneath his belt buckle. 

“I can act however you want me to,” he purrs —  _ Purrs! _ Like a devilish fucking  _ sex kitten _ or something. 

“Did someone put something in your tea, English?” Pete raises both eyebrows. “I feel like there’s an important part of this conversation that I’m missing, could you clue me in?”

“I’ll admit, I was a little bit pissed off that you fucked off during the night,” Patrick tells him, in a voice he doesn’t recognise at all, a voice low and thick with sex. “But you can make it up to me. We have half an hour before anyone’s going to come looking for us. We can do a lot in half an hour.”

“Patrick?” Pete asks, gravely concerned. “What are you talking about?”

Patrick pauses. Patrick’s confused pulse ricochets through his veins. He begins, through the urgent throb of arousal in his groin, to get a low, sinking feeling in his chest. “Um,” he says, eventually. “I was just thinking about last night. Have you been thinking about last night?”

Pete’s jaw tightens. “Last night? I don’t think… Was there something special about last night?”

“Was there…?” Patrick trails off. The low, liquid humming in his gut begins to chill. “Pete? Are you taking the piss? Because if you are, it’s not funny.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Patrick stares at Pete, Pete who refuses to look back, who finds interesting patterns on the carpet to occupy his time. This is not the first time this has happened to Patrick. He clears his throat softly. “Look, if you need some time to come to terms with it, that’s fine. It’s a big deal, it’s  _ huge, _ I understand if—”

Pete laughs and says, “Patrick, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” and suddenly Patrick  _ gets it. _ Pete isn’t going to shout and scream and rend the air and beg God for forgiveness for his momentary lapse in judgement and/or heterosexuality. He isn’t going to come over to the other side in slow, delicate steps. Pete is just going to pretend it didn’t happen at all.

This is how heartbreak feels. It’s not gorgeous. Patrick has not missed it. “Oh,” he says, bewildered. “It’s – Okay. Right.”

“Maybe you should get back to your own trailer,” Pete says. He does not say this kindly, nor does he say it unkindly. He’s neutral, a disinterested party. He is exactly what Patrick wanted him to be when they first met. “We’re filming soon. Great day for it.”

“It’s Los Angeles, every day is great for it.” Patrick stands on uncertain feet. “Um, listen. I won’t – In case you’re worried? I won’t. Tell anyone.”

Pete tips his head and frowns at Patrick like he’s adorable. “You’re behaving in a particularly weird way this morning. Is this that infamous British eccentricity? Gotta say, not loving it.”

“Pete, please,” Patrick tries, his heart splintering in his chest. “Don’t do this to me. I can cope with a change of heart, truly I can, but don’t pretend it didn’t even—”

“Pete?” someone calls from the far end of the trailer. The part of the trailer in which Pete’s bathroom and bedroom are contained. Someone distinctly and undeniably female. Patrick’s throat seizes. He would like, very much, to be excused from this narrative.

“Just a second,” Pete calls back. He turns to Patrick, shrugs. “Ash,” he says, by way of explanation. His ex-wife. Patrick fears he may be violently sick all over the expensive carpeting. “I’d introduce you, but…” He trails off, gives the towel a playful tug and waggles his eyebrows. “We have a half hour before filming. I can do a lot in a half hour.”

“Right.” Patrick nods with such heartfelt earnest, his head jerking like he can dislodge the image of Pete fucking his ex-wife hours after Patrick was inside of him. He can’t. “Righty-o. Excellent. Have – have fun.”

“Later, man,” Pete says politely.

Patrick is at the door before he realises he’s still clutching Consider the Lobster. “Oh,” he says, holding it out towards Pete. “Your book. I – You should take your book.”

Pete looks at the book with unrelenting disdain. His lip curls derisively. When he speaks, his voice is patronising. 

“That’s okay, you keep it. It wasn’t my style, after all.”


	10. Chapter 10

Pete spends the rest of the day feeling horrible. It’s an inward-facing sort of horrible, though. He doesn’t feel horrible for Patrick, so much as he feels horrible for himself. Horrible and guilty and very, very freaked out. Every time he stands still, stops moving, stops doing something, an insidious little voice creeps in from stage left and whispers,  _ Last night, you had sex with a man, _ and then Pete stops doing what he’s doing and spends a few seconds staring into the middle distance and feeling…  _ weird. _

He’s deliberately not thinking about Patrick’s face when he left Pete’s trailer a few hours ago. ‘Crushed’ is probably the best verb to describe him. Pete feels no immediate regret: he had to get Patrick out of the trailer before something happened with Ashlee close enough that she’d have heard Pete’s towel hitting the floor. It makes his gut curdle to think about it, to imagine the look on her face, the inevitable headlines. A forced and miserable coming out interview is not the reason he wants to appear on the cover of GQ. There is a tight, red knot where Pete’s lungs used to be. He takes an uneven breath. 

He’s forced to admit that rejecting the book was possibly a step too far. Not much he can do about it now, though.

Apparently, Pete isn’t great at sex with out gay men. Which is a shame, because the sex was amazing. He’s really good at sex with men as far back in the closet as he is. People like that have something to hide, people like  _ that _ keep their mouths shut and don’t pose a massive security risk in the form of a drive-by outing.

Annoyingly, he also wants to do the whole penetrative sex with a man thing again. Imminently. Sooner than that. His head turns slushy and soft when he thinks about Patrick  _ inside of him _ , like he’s been wound too tight, left waiting to spring. He wants to do it again so much his teeth itch with it, to feel Patrick pressed up against him in interesting ways. He’s unsure yet if this is a gay thing, which horrifies him, or a very specific to Patrick thing, which horrifies him even more. Clearly, there’s a metric fuck ton of empirical data to collect, so many experiments to run. 

Pete’s life is so complicated right now, it’s unreal.

Patrick shifts across the set, looking a thousand different shades of edible in his white v-neck and mirrored aviators. Pete is trying very hard not to think about what’s tucked away in Patrick’s Levi’s. Somehow, this isn’t as bad as the moments when their eyes meet, even though Pete’s doing everything in his power to  _ never ever look Patrick in the eyes ever a-fucking-gain. _

It was probably an ambitious goal when they’re starring opposite one another in a romantic comedy. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t think of a single Julia Roberts movie where she doesn’t look at her co-star once.

Plus, Gerard noticed in under a minute and now he keeps barking, “Look at him, Pete. No,  _ at  _ him. Which word are you struggling with? Look, at, or him?” 

So, Pete looks at Patrick and Patrick looks back coolly and Pete’s forced to remember looking at Patrick while Patrick was inside of him and oh, God. He’s going to pass out.

“Cut!” Gerard shouts, exasperated. “Fuck, just – Take five, everyone.”

Patrick heads to the catering table. Pete hovers by the wall.

“Is something wrong?” Mikey asks apparating at Pete’s side like he’s haunting him. Pete shrieks softly in shock. Mikey sounds justifiably furious, because Pete has gone from being a passable actor to someone who wouldn’t get a walk-on part in a high school musical.

Patrick doesn’t linger nearby; he takes off to the furthest point from Pete without actually migrating to Australia. He nurses his cup of tea furiously and shrugs, red-cheeked, when Joe asks him something under his breath.

“Uh,” Pete says elegantly, watching Patrick. “What did you say?”

“Is. Something. Wrong?” Mikey enunciates, very clearly and slowly.

“No,” Pete snaps. “Nothing’s  _ wrong.  _ Why would anything be  _ wrong?  _ Did Patrick say something was wrong? Because I’ll fucking  _ sue _ him if he’s talking shit about me to the directors, that’s completely not cool.”

Mikey looks at Pete like he’s certifiably insane. “Are you feeling okay?”

Obviously, Pete isn’t feeling okay. Pete is convinced that Mikey can read him, like possibly-gay tea leaves, and  _ tell _ that, last night, Pete let Patrick Stump fuck him. 

“What the fuck makes you think there’s something wrong?” Pete asks sharply.

Mikey’s mouth twists. He blinks slowly. He waves a hand slowly, encompassing the entirety of Pete from his head to his toes and says, “Like… Basically all of this. Your general air of  _ not okay _ is why I think something’s wrong.”

Pete glares at a spot on the studio wall just above Patrick’s head. He realizes he hasn’t answered Mikey in a  _ really _ long time.

“Did he? Say anything?” Pete asks, uncomfortably aware of the way his voice and lower lip are trembling. He’s sweating through his shirt which he’ll blame on the lights if anyone asks.

Mikey continues to stare at Pete like he’s grown an extra head, like he might be imagining calling Pete’s therapist and the studio’s insurance company in short order. Then, he clearly decides that rational conversation with Pete is a ship that sailed, hit rough water, capsized and disappeared to the bottom of the Atlantic, salvageable only via the means of a deep-sea exploration vehicle. The moment he gives up entirely is marked only by a brief flutter of his eyelashes behind the lenses of his glasses.

He shrugs and says, “Look. Pull it together, okay? The filming schedule is  _ tight _ and we don’t have time for fuck ups. Get your head back in the game.”

Pete nods and tells himself he doesn’t care enough to look across the room at Patrick, and then immediately looks across the room at Patrick and catches him looking right back at Pete. Neither of them smiles at the other. The look Patrick gives Pete is so cold the room chills by twenty degrees. His soft mouth is pulled into a hard, uncompromising line. It would still look spectacular wrapped around Pete’s dick.

This is a bad thought. Pete shakes his head like an aggressively heterosexual Etch-a-Sketch. 

Andy hands him a coffee. “You’re acting really weird today. By the metrics with which your weirdness is usually measured. If I compare you to a  _ normal  _ person then you’re, like, off the charts.”

Pete doesn’t need this right now. Really, he doesn’t. 

“Is being a PA like being a professor?” Pete asks, knocking the coffee back so quickly he scalds his throat.

Andy raises an eyebrow over the frames of his sunglasses. “How do you mean?”

“Like, do PAs get tenure?”

“I don’t even get  _ dental.” _ This is a lie. Andy gets full healthcare; Pete pays for it personally. 

“Excellent. So, to clarify, I can still fire you whenever I want?”

Andy rolls his eyes. Pete can’t see it, but he’s aware of it all the same. “Very funny. Who would replace me?  _ That  _ guy?” He jerks a thumb at Joe, who appears to be in the middle of giving Patrick an inspirational speech. A development Pete finds not at all soothing. “No one else would last five minutes with you.”

“The fuck are they talking about over there?” he snaps.

“How the hell would I know?”

“Well, they look pretty fucking  _ invested, _ whatever it is. Do you think he’d go to the press about me? Do you think they’d  _ believe _ him? I mean, he’s a diva, everyone knows it, I can deny everything he says and who are they gonna believe? Me. That’s who. Fuck him.”

Andy looks across at Joe and Patrick and back at Pete. It’s a very slow, measured look and it makes Pete’s insides curl up at the edges. It was too obvious.  _ He _ was too obvious. Andy clears his throat and says, “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

Not without Andy signing a non disclosure first. Pete shakes his head aggressively. “There’s nothing I want to tell anyone,” he says, with heartfelt truth. “Is Gerard calling for me?”

Gerard isn’t calling for him, but Andy is too polite to point this out and Pete is grateful that no one follows him as he hurries across the set and locks himself in the bathroom and spends a miserable ten minutes coaching himself in the mirror. As he stares at his own maudlin reflection — the face of a man who was  _ penetrated _ less than twelve hours ago, God, he is never going to stop freaking out — he decides he needs a plan. A clear cut set of instructions by which he can re-rail this trainwreck. 

What Pete needs, is an Idiot’s Guide to Realigning Flagging Heterosexuality. 

***

Pete forms a plan after they break for lunch.

It’s a great plan, a plan of such enduring brilliance that it continues to seem like a good idea right through the afternoon’s filming. It remains remarkable even as he pushes Patrick up against a wall in the farmer’s market and, with the camera on them, kisses him like he’s starved for the taste of his tongue. Patrick kisses back. Patrick is either better than Pete at separating his non-actor feelings from his actor ones or Patrick has no real feelings for Pete either way. 

Anyway, Pete decides that, since his plan has endured an entire afternoon of the Way brothers barking orders at him, a whole eight hours of his hands on Patrick, his  _ mouth _ on Patrick, then it’s probably a reasonably sensible plan. Definitely not the worst idea he’s ever had. Possibly even scraping into the Top Ten greatest hits. Pete’s plan is so brilliant in its simplicity, it’s a wonder it took him so long to figure it out.

Pete needs to have sex with Patrick again. 

It makes sense. If the Subject engages in sexual activity with a male and enjoys it once, that is not an accurate or thoroughly researched data pool. The Subject should engage in sexual activity with the same male (in order to keep the data samples as pure and uncorrupted as possible) and, if the same result is achieved, say, five or six times in a row, in ten to fifteen different positions, then the scientific data will speak for itself. For what it’s worth, Pete is banking on the second time being a bust. Then, they can laugh about it and Pete can return to a life where he doesn’t have to worry about latent sexual attraction to anatomy that matches his own. 

Worryingly — pathetically — Pete has managed to go less than twenty-four hours without dick and is already salivating more than he would care to admit just  _ thinking _ about Patrick’s hard, blood-gorged, gorgeous, anxiety attack-inducing penis. His own academically-challenged dick is chubbing up a little at the thought. He’s not sure what this says for the scientific hypothesis of his plan. He’s not thinking about it. He will stick to the plan, because it’s an excellent plan that will, hopefully, end with an orgasm either way.

For science.

The methodology is fairly simple. He is standing outside of Patrick’s apartment, just like he did last night. He is clutching a paper bag from Ralphs, only tonight there’s no scotch. This time, he’s sprung for champagne — warm — and plastic flutes, because he doubts Patrick’s dingy little one-bed contains appropriate glassware. There are condoms in his wallet — the flavored and brightly coloured variety. He considers himself a generous lover and thinks this shows a playful side to his bedroom manner. He also has lube, rattling with a plasticky thunk against the champagne and flutes. The lube is flavoured, too. He hopes Patrick likes synthetic blueberry. 

Pete knocks at the door and smooths a hand through the bedhead that took the dude from hair and makeup an hour to get just so. He swallows his cinnamon gum, even though he remembers his mom telling him it would stay in his stomach for ten years. As the chain rattles, he grins his brightest, most alluring grin and lounges against the door frame. There is no way Patrick will be able to resist this. 

Patrick opens the door and his facial expression shifts from inquisitive, to stunned, to toweringly pissed off. So great is the force of Patrick’s fury that Pete begins to doubt the validity of his plan. It seems that Pete has wildly underestimated the likelihood of Patrick resisting him.

Patrick, Pete notes, is dressed in the sloppy, stretched out shirt of a soccer team Pete’s not sure he can pronounce. The shirt is nylon and Patrick’s hair drifts in staticky wisps around his face, his glasses adorably askew on his nose, his sweatpants low and slouchy on his hips. He looks like the softest, most comfortable thing Pete has ever seen. Pete wants to roll around on him in ways that are not entirely sexual. He doesn’t look like he’s dressed for company, unless his British irritation has separated from his body, become sentient and demanded… yorkshire pudding, or whatever the fuck they eat over there. The record should show that he is still show-stoppingly beautiful. 

Patrick’s face settles into a cool, formidable frown. Actually, it’s more of a glower. The dislike that radiates from him is so hot that Pete risks sunburn from proximity. Patrick folds his arms and tilts his chin and, very coldly, he says, “Oh. It’s you.”

“Hi,” Pete says brightly, with his best smile. Not the magazine one. The  _ genuine _ one.

Patrick remains lodged in the doorway. He doesn’t open the door at all, or move aside, he just continues to glare at Pete from under the fringe of his coppery hair. Pete possibly begins to feel a little bit stupid in his optimism. It’s not a setback, as such. It’s just that Patrick doesn’t understand Pete’s brilliant plan. 

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” Pete asks eventually, when the silence has stretched from slightly awkward to parent-teacher night levels of uncomfortable.

Patrick shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He looks Pete up and down with all of the disdain reserved for things trodden in at the dog park.

“No,” he says archly. 

Pete’s brows knit together. “What do you mean, ‘no’?” He rattles his Ralphs bag of booze and lube. “I bought champagne. I bought  _ glasses. _ ”

He doesn’t mention the lube. It doesn’t seem like they’ve reached the ‘lube’ stage of the conversation just yet.

“Well.” Patrick takes off his glasses and buffs them slowly on the hem of his shirt. It reveals a thin slice of perfectly pale, cinnamon dusted  _ tummy skin _ that makes Pete’s dick twitch hopefully. He had no idea he was quite so into the idea of fuzzy, masculine  _ tummy skin. _ “I suppose you’ll have to take it back to your house, with your many friends, and drink it up before it gets warm, won’t you?”

Pete’s dick deflates sadly. It does not approve of how opposed Patrick is to the plan. Pete’s dick was hopelessly optimistic for another one of those spectacular blowjobs. If Pete doesn’t turn this around, his scientific data may have to be sought with nothing more than Patrick’s filmography and Pete’s wholly inadequate right hand. At least the lube will still be useful.

“You’re being sort of a dick,” Pete points out.

Patrick looks furious for a second, the rage streaking across his features like lightning.  _ “Me,” _ he hisses, through gritted teeth.  _ “I’m _ being sort of a dick? Are you – Is this your Two in the Dark moment?”

“Two in the Dark?” Pete repeats, puzzled.

“Oh,  _ God.  _ Are you taking the piss? It’s a  _ film,  _ Pete. Margot Grahame and Walter Abel. He loses his memory and – Do you know what?” Patrick pauses and pushes both hands through his hair, which leaves it even more staticky and wild than before. “I’m not having this conversation with you. Go away.”

Pete’s frown deepens. “So, it’s an amnesia movie?”

_ “Film.” _ Patrick corrects him; Pete cocks his head quizzically. “It’s a fucking  _ film.” _

“Whatever. Why didn’t you just say 50 First Dates?”

Patrick looks at Pete morosely, not bothering to veil the unbearable  _ hurt _ in his eyes. “Because my life isn’t an Adam Sandler  _ movie. _ Does that demonstrate the difference? Between movie and film?”

Pete falls silent. Not once since the day they met has Patrick ever shown a soft side. Honestly, Pete assumed he was made of cactuses stuffed with particularly pointy rocks. Right now though, Patrick looks… unhappy. Probably because of what happened in Pete’s trailer. Which makes no sense because Patrick has, so far, shown no particular emotional response to any of the  _ nice _ things Pete has done for him, it seems  _ absurd _ that he should develop any kind of reaction to the less than nice things. Patrick shifts his weight again and tugs gently at the hem of his shirt, his head bowed. Pete stares at the crown of Patrick’s head and realises he has  _ no idea _ what he’s supposed to do next.

Now is probably not the best time to mention the lube, but God loves a trier and Pete would really like to get laid. 

“Can I come in?” he tries again. “I don’t think this is a conversation we should have in a public hallway.”

Patrick laughs mirthlessly. “What conversation? What  _ exactly _ shouldn’t we talk about?”

Pete clears his throat and feels himself begin to blush an embarrassing shade of lobster. The only reason he knows he is not physically on fire is because he can’t smell burning. “Well.  _ You know…” _

“Nothing happened,” Patrick says coldly. “You said so yourself. Nothing of any note happened last night. So, what can’t we talk about? Your ex wife? The movie?”

“Film,” Pete corrects. 

Patrick snorts softly. “You’re learning.”

“I’m quick.” Pete grins. “I mean, not with sex stuff. With sex stuff I’m slow. Not slow as in  _ slow, _ but like… I take my time. You know?”

Patrick doesn’t look like he wants to discuss Pete’s skillset.

“Go home, Pete,” Patrick advises quietly, shuffling back so he can close the door. “Leave me alone.”

And Pete suspects he might be losing the crowd a little and so, before Patrick can maneuver his foot out of the way and navigate the process of sliding the door into the doorframe, Pete seizes his courage with both hands — well,  _ one _ hand, because the other is still holding the champagne and lube — and leans forward and grabs Patrick by the front of his shirt and crushes his mouth to Patrick’s so thoroughly, so  _ completely, _ that Patrick opens his mouth to gasp. Patrick’s gasp is a tactical retreat on his part that allows Pete to slip his tongue over Patrick’s lips, to trace the tip against the roof of his mouth just behind his teeth. 

Like a lock, Patrick shivers, gives and opens up. With a snarl, he grabs Pete by the knot of his tie and hauls him over the threshold, slamming the door closed behind him. They crush together in the tiny vestibule of the apartment and kiss like they’re both starving for it. Patrick bites into Pete’s lower lip; Pete fists a hand in Patrick’s hair and tugs him close enough to bruise his mouth. This is going remarkably well. Honestly, Pete’s plan is a brilliant thing. 

Patrick grabs Pete’s hand and pushes it into his crotch. So hot and swollen is Patrick’s dick that Pete fears his hand might come away blistered.

“Is this what you came here for?” Patrick asks defiantly. “Got a taste of something forbidden and now you want more?”

Pete nods silently because he still has a plan and the plan involves testing his reaction to the proximity of a dick. Patrick’s dick, specifically. Currently, his own erection is a thick and generous quiver, filled with every beat of blood in his body. He thinks the experiment is going really well, or really poorly, depending on what he wants the outcome to be.

He’s having a difficult time remembering.

“Fine,” Patrick hisses, his blue eyes hard and cold. “Then get on your knees and suck my cock.” 

Pete’s dick gives a hard twitch. “With fucking pleasure.”

Pete drops with such speed he risks friction burn to the knees from the peeling faux-hardwood vinyl. He grabs Patrick’s glorious ass in both hands and buries his face in the musky, salty dick-smell of Patrick’s crotch, breathing deep through the cotton of his sweats. His pulse is capped in his cock, dammed there, the aching throb of it answered in the urgent heat of Patrick’s erection against his mouth. Pete sucks the fabric right over the straining tip of Patrick’s dick until he tastes him; brackish like the ocean, not bitter at all. 

They yank at clothes haphazardly. Pete’s shirt is half unbuttoned, his tie choking him, Patrick’s sweatpants snag on his hips, his thighs, his glorious cock popping free. Pete  _ stares. _ He examines, up close, the handsome curving thickness of it, the wet and swollen head, pink and gorgeous. There’s a possibility that Pete’s research has already reached a unanimous conclusion: Pete  _ aches _ to taste this dick. Steadying the shaft with one hand, he wets his lips, he looks up through his lashes and he plants a kiss lightly on the curve of Patrick’s hipbone.  _ I think I really like you, _ he wants to say, but doesn’t. Patrick scowls down at him, his fury measurable as a national disaster. They’ll feel the aftershocks all the way over in Palmdale. 

Neither of them says a word. Instead, they move in tandem, united in motion: Pete opens his mouth and tips his head forward; Patrick tilts his hips and pulls hard on Pete’s hair. Patrick pulls back; Pete guides him forward by the ass. The sting in his scalp lights a thermite trail to the quivering pink heat of Pete’s cock and he  _ moans _ as he takes the swollen tip of Patrick’s cock into his mouth and moves his tongue in a deliberate, arcing flick that makes Patrick shiver. 

_ “Fuck,” _ Patrick whispers, as he fills Pete’s mouth with his cock. “Fuck, fuck,  _ fuck.” _

Pete takes him in deep, right to the galaxy’s edge of his sensitive gag reflex. Pete licks and strokes and bob-swallow- _ sucks _ until Patrick’s back arches and he bites his lip to the point of pulping. Eyes screwed closed, head thrown back, pale and lovely throat exposed, Patrick shines like Mars. This is it. This is the holy moment where Pete is on his knees at Patrick’s feet, taking the unashamed sacrament of the dark and earthy taste of Patrick’s cock on his tongue. This is everything he’s been afraid of and, it turns out, it is  _ divine _ . 

“I like you better like this,” Patrick hisses viciously. “Can’t talk bollocks with your mouth full, can you? We can be friends when you’re on your knees.”

It may be Pete’s imagination, but Patrick doesn’t seem an enamoured by this encounter as he was by the last one. Pete palms his own swollen dick through his pants. His tongue moves cautiously along the gorged crown of Patrick’s erection, exploring the delicate cuff of his foreskin, the way he shivers like the sensation is almost too much. Patrick’s hips move in tiny, pointed undulations, his hands cupped around Pete’s hollowed cheeks, his thumb scuffing under Pete’s stretched lip. Pete cannot  _ wait _ for the wash of Patrick’s orgasm on his tongue, wants to suck it from him and drown in it, to wring it from him and leave him hollow with bliss. Patrick makes a noise, an involuntary, strangled cry and Pete grabs his thighs, sucks, waits, holds on…

“Pete,” Patrick whispers, thumbing over Pete’s cheekbone as he locks up at the knees, as his spine stiffens and his hips jolt and the warm, messy flood of him coats Pete’s tongue and spills down his throat. Pete sucks desperately, chases every drop until Patrick cries out and shudders and pushes him back.

Patrick folds to the floor slowly, his back sliding down the wall as his knees give out and he lands half on top of Pete on the unbeautiful floor. Patrick breathes heavily and doesn’t speak and doesn’t look at Pete until Pete, his dick so thick and full of blood, decides that if he doesn’t come soon he might go blind and reaches for his own belt buckle. 

“Let me,” Patrick whispers, wedged between Pete and the wall, his hands fumbling with Pete’s button and zipper. It’s not easy in the confined space, both of them halfway to their knees. “Fucking  _ hell, _ let me.” He brings his palm to Pete’s mouth. “Lick.”

Pete does, his tongue painting a wet arc across Patrick’s hand. Compelled to prove a point, he sucks Patrick’s index finger into his mouth as Patrick watches, curls his tongue around the tips. He smells the lingering bleachy tang of Patrick’s orgasm caught on his skin, tastes him thick on his tongue. Patrick answers him with a low, animal moan.

Patrick works his hand into Pete’s pants, gets his fist around the swollen length of Pete’s cock and Pete experiences the sensation of taking a cattle prod to the base of his spine. His hips jolt. His teeth sink into the curve of Patrick’s throat. He possibly ascends the physical plane. Patrick’s fingers curl and his palm squeezes and Pete watches his own angry red dick popping through Patrick’s fist. This could be the pinnacle of all human sensation. Pete sees fucking  _ stars. _

“Hnngh,” Pete gasps into Patrick’s throat. In any other situation, Pete would describe himself as embarrassingly close, but he’s not embarrassed at all. This is it for him. He revels in the greatest act of sexual congress of his life so far: a handjob in a shitty corporate apartment in Studio City. Pete has done many questionable things with many gorgeous people, he thought his catalog reached further than that. Then Patrick does something, a clever twist of his wrist as his thumb skims the head, and Pete’s higher function shuts down faster than a utility company-mandated power cut. 

“Fuck!” Pete gasps. “I’m gonna – I’m gonna—”

Patrick nips at Pete’s ear. “Let go for me.”

_ I’m so fucking into you, _ Pete thinks, and then comes before he can panic about it. It startles him, punches the air from his lungs and leaves his gasping into Patrick’s shoulder as he fills Patrick’s fist with thick, urgent spurts. It feels like it’s being dragged from his core, like he’s been catapulted for the stars and now he’s in freefall. He whines and gasps and mouths sloppily at Patrick’s throat until his body stops pulsing, until his dick is limp and soft against his zipper and Patrick pushes him away with an irritated huff. He blinks up, confused. This isn’t part of the plan.

Patrick leans back against the wall and doesn’t meet his eyes, he wipes the wet mess of Pete’s orgasm onto the leg of his sweatpants and says, “So, you got your own way. Happy now?”

Pete, who isn’t capable of rational thought, let alone ordered speech, makes a soft, gurgling sound in the back of his throat that he hopes conveys exactly how happy he is with the orgasm, but also how deeply  _ unhappy  _ he is that Patrick has moved away from him. He wants to take this to the bedroom, to defy human biology and see how long it takes him to coax Patrick’s dick back to life via mouth to head resuscitation. He wants to learn all of the ways he can make Patrick come apart, and spend the rest of the night putting him back together again in just the right way. He thinks Patrick might be the most gorgeous, the most charming, wonderful,  _ fascinating _ human being he’s ever met. He  _ is  _ happy, he supposes, but only because he’s in Patrick’s orbit.

When he tries to say this, all that comes out is, “Mmph.”

Patrick rolls from Pete inelegantly, breaking all points of contact between them. He pulls his sweatpants back up over his hips. He tucks his soft, pink dick back inside. He stands and hovers awkwardly over Pete, who is still sprawled on the floor exposing himself. This is confusing for Pete, and absolutely not the turn he wants the evening to take. He makes a ridiculous, desperate whine and paws weakly at Patrick’s ankle. He hopes this demonstrates his thoughts on the pants situation.

Patrick takes a deep breath and a step back and touches the angry red imprint of Pete’s dental records on his neck. “Get out.”

Pete rallies quickly. This is not a turn he imagined the conversation taking. This is supposed to be the part where Patrick laughs, where he pulls Pete onto the couch and kisses him breathless in soft lighting. In a romantic comedy they would tumble together into the bed and Patrick would make a witty observation and Pete would laugh and the credits would roll to a soft rock soundtrack. He gapes at Patrick, his mouth opening and closing as he buffers, lags, processes. “I…” he begins. “What?”

It’s clear Pete has wildly misread Patrick’s thoughts on the situation between the two of them. 

“You heard me,” Patrick snaps, already walking away and into the apartment. “Get out of my fucking flat, you self-loathing, closeted  _ arsehole.” _

“I’m not in the closet!” Pete objects, and he almost believes it.

Patrick’s mouth twists in a sneer. “Oh  _ do _ fuck off, you absolute  _ wanker. _ You’re so far back in the closet you’re in fucking  _ Narnia!” _

With that, Patrick stalks across the apartment and into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. For once, Pete has absolutely nothing to say and no one to say it to. They were having a nice time. They  _ were.  _ Pete, truly, does not understand. He thinks he might be the asshole in this situation, but has no idea  _ why. _ In the silence of Patrick’s apartment, he fastens his pants and buttons his shirt and ignores the tight knot of shame boiling low in his belly.

Then, he slips out through the front door, closing it softly behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's late!


	11. Chapter 11

“What did he do this time?”

Patrick blinks up at Joe from his tea. It is, ostensibly, English breakfast tea. For some reason, the person in catering added no milk, but did drop a lemon wedge into the cup. It’s like sipping on a cardboard container of freshly brewed toilet cleaner. Patrick concentrates very hard on forcing it down. He’s found that raising the cup to his mouth at regular intervals makes him look like he’s occupied. Looking occupied gives him an excellent reason not to look at Pete. 

Pete, determined to be as eye-catching as possible, is wandering around the set in a flesh-coloured thong and very little else. If Patrick were to look, which he does _not,_ he would be able to see the neat edges of Pete’s dark pubic hair. Patrick has never filmed a sex scene with someone with whom he has actually had sex. It’s not his favourite.

He clears his throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Right.” Joe looks unconvinced. “Only, you’re not talking to him, looking at him, or holding book club meetings with him. So, what’s up with that?”

“I didn’t have a book club with him.”

“You had a book club,” Joe says, rolling his eyes. “The presence of the book club isn’t up for debate. What I want to know is why there’s no longer a book club. Where’d the book club go? Who struck the book? Club.” He grins, like he’s proud of his terrible rhyming ability.

“Pete decided he had better things to do,” Patrick says. Silently, he adds, _Like his ex-wife._ “Which is _fine,”_ he adds hurriedly, when Joe raises a skeptical eyebrow. “It’s absolutely fine, because I _also_ have better things to do. I didn’t even want to read with him in the first place. This works out nicely for both of us.”

Joe looks like he doesn’t believe him, but Patrick is a practiced liar. He smiles blandly and takes another sip of his tea.

“You know, the dude from hair and makeup has been asking about you,” Joe says eventually. “You want me to hook you up?”

“No, thank you. I’m perfectly capable of finding my own dates.” Or fucking his own closeted co-stars. “Besides, I’ll be back in Blighty in a few weeks’ time. No point getting involved with anyone, is there?”

Patrick’s life is complicated like this. Unable to communicate his feelings. Unable to conduct a date with an interested man like a normal person. Just like that, Patrick realises that Pete has ruined him entirely.

“I could—”

“Joe. I’m wearing nothing but a studio-mandated bathrobe and my underpants. I’m about to climb into a shower cubicle – _on camera_ – and simulate anal sex with my _very_ heterosexual co-star.” He says this bitterly and resents himself for feeling bitter because Pete’s insistence on remaining aggressively publicly straight really is _none_ of Patrick’s business. “I appreciate the dating advice, really I do, but right now is not the time.”

Joe raises an eyebrow. “So, Pete didn’t…”

“Pete _didn’t,”_ Patrick says. He says this with such volume that an uneducated bystander might assume he’s shouting. But he’s not. He’s just making his point.

Joe jumps back half a step and nods. “Okay, man,” he says, his hands up. “It’s fine. Sorry I mentioned it. But like, totally unrelated? If you need me to kick a random guy in the face — maybe a guy with stupid Tim Burton tattoos — I am totally down to that for you. Absolutely no questions asked.”

Patrick smiles thinly. “Duly noted.”

Then he turns and walks directly into someone wearing a flesh-coloured thong. They accessorise with the remnants of Patrick’s tea as he upends the cup all over their chest, abs, crotch. They are also Pete Fucking Wentz. Dante was wrong. There are clearly _many_ additional circles of Hell beyond the mandated nine, and Patrick is residing in all of them simultaneously. He hopes the tea burns Pete, but he probably shouldn’t say that out loud.

“Sorry,” he mutters gruffly “I hope it didn’t burn you.”

Somehow, it sounds even more disingenuous when he says it out loud.

“No,” Pete says, wincing. The tea’s route leaves behind a splotchy red map, not unlike a map of Middle Earth, so Patrick assumes Pete is lying. “I’m – This is fine. I’m absolutely fine. Honestly, don’t worry about it.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Patrick says mildly.

“So,” Pete mutters. “Is everything… okay with you?”

There is the sound of a cardboard cup losing its structural integrity. Patrick realises he is crushing the one in his hand, instead of crushing Pete’s windpipe. This, he decides, is an act of personal growth. Pete eyes the cup warily.

“I don’t know what I’ve done wrong,” Pete begins, because Pete is a twat. “I know I’m an idiot, but—”

And Patrick – Patrick is suddenly _tired_ of hearing Pete talk about his _feelings _and his _revelations _and his _denial._ He cuts Pete off before he can say any more stupid things. “That’s nice. I know you’re an idiot, too. It’s good that we can agree on these things, don’t you think? Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Pete reaches out and wraps a hand around Patrick’s elbow. Patrick jolts back sharply and pulls himself free. “Don’t,” he says quietly, aware that the set is small and anyone could overhear. “Just – Don’t touch me.”

Carefully, Pete folds his hand back to himself. He looks at Patrick with such… earnestness. “I’m nervous, okay? I’ve never filmed anything like this before. Do you ever get nervous, Captain Calm?”

Patrick wants to tell Pete that he’s felt nervous since the second he laid eyes on him in the Way brothers’ grungy East coast office. That there’s been a tension knot the size of the Greater Los Angeles area caught in his lungs every time Pete looks at him from those impossible amber eyes. That he didn’t realise that desperate, breathless _anticipation_ came in a flavour this vivid until he knew how it felt to sit in his trailer and wait for Pete to smile at him over a David Foster Wallace novel. 

He really doesn’t want to admit that he’s falling in love with Pete. 

But this is not that movie and Patrick is not that actor and so he tips his head to the side and keeps his voice calm and level and carefully collected. 

“I’m absolutely fine,” Patrick says easily. He aims a friendly punch at Pete’s bare shoulder. It is possibly harder than it needs to be. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Before Pete can answer, Gerard summons them. Patrick shrugs off his robe and drapes it carefully over the back of his chair. He pretends he doesn’t feel faintly ridiculous with his artfully waxed and trimmed chest hair and he climbs into the shower cubicle. Pete slips in behind him. Patrick closes his eyes and becomes someone else. 

***

This is a big moment. The Ways are aiming to shoot the most intense male-on-male sex scene to make it onto mainstream screens. The goal is to avoid an NC-17 rating, but only by a whisker. One wrong move and the film becomes unmarketable. There is a lot riding on how Patrick rides Pete, basically. The direction is simple: Marcus uses sex to lure Louis into his world of excess, Patrick must convincingly portray this, the first step on that journey. The pressure is unbearable. 

“And… action.”

Patrick knows why _he’s _nervous. He’s a gay man recording a sex scene with a man whose heterosexual image so strong he makes John Wayne look camp. He _understands_ the implications of this, thanks very much. He’s thought about very little else for the past week and a half. 

The confusing point of contention is why _Pete_ seems so nervous. When he reaches up to cup Patrick’s face, his hands shake. There is the briefest moment of hesitation before he allows their mouths to touch. His kiss is uncertain, lovely. He asks permission with his eyes before he touches any other part of Patrick’s body. It’s sweet and it’s tender and it’s exactly what the scene calls for, only Pete is a _horrible_ actor, completely incapable of this level of nuance, unless…

Unless he feels it, too.

And this, Patrick cannot cope with. The thing about filming sex scenes is that it is _supposed_ to be spectacularly _un-fucking-sexy._ They’re being observed by the Ways, by two camera operators, a lighting tech, someone from sound, _and _a makeup artist. Patrick is wearing the most desperately unflattering pair of underpants he’s ever seen in his life. Pete is supposed to concetrate on, in no particular order, keeping his forearm from blocking the shot, his thigh the right side of Patrick’s, his sex face acceptably attractive. Not that he needs to work on the last one. His sex face _is_ spectacularly attractive. Not like Patrick, who suspects he looks like he’s in the throes of a particularly painful aneurysm when he comes. 

Pete shoves him, turns him, and presses the lean, hard length of his chest against Patrick’s back. He breathes into his ear: “Fuck.”

Patrick closes his eyes as Pete’s hands close over his hips. Pete’s mouth explores the soft, sensitive skin just beneath Patrick’s ear. Pete bites into the tendons there with care, like he’s staging a complicated experiment and intends to collect and collate as much data as possible. Patrick feels his pulse ripple under Pete’s teeth. He closes his eyes and leans back into the hip bones that bracket the round of his own arse. He does not think of the body behind him as Pete, or Louis. He is no longer Patrick, or Marcus. They’re nothing more than a collection of parts, of blood-warm props in this particular scene. His fingers dig into the shower screen. His groan is heartfelt.

Then, he feels it.

Something is... _happening_ at the crease of Patrick’s arse, right where his ridiculous modesty underwear dips down between his cheeks. A thickening. A _stiffening. _Completely foreign here in front of the cameras but immediately recognisable. Patrick rolls his hips back into it carefully and yes — Yes! — Pete is half-hard and getting harder with every heartbeat. 

_Do you get turned on?_ Patrick’s heard it a hundred times. And the answer is always no. There’s too much to think about, too many people, a camera mere feet away. Sex scenes are uncomfortable, awkward, ridiculous at best. But Pete is _responding._ This erection is… thrilling. Patrick, presented with the upper hand, is _thrilled._

Mouths meet over Patrick’s shoulder. Pete nips into Patrick’s lower lip, almost savage, almost a warning. Patrick gives a testing thrust back, feels the thick heat of Pete’s straining cock slide into the cleft of him. Pete makes a sound somewhere between humiliation and determination. His grip on Patrick’s hips tightens. This is not a game, but a battle. Patrick thinks he might be winning.

Pete’s moans are not fake any more, if they ever were. He groans into Patrick’s throat like he’s dying. His hips move desperate in tiny, choppy little thrusts. Patrick’s body is the only thing between Pete and the revelation that Pete is hard from dry humping against the arse of another man. Patrick’s mouth crooks with a wicked smile, he tips his head back and licks into Pete’s mouth. When it arrives, his faked orgasm is spectacular, and Pete locks up behind him, shudders. His dick twitches against Patrick’s arse. 

They don’t move until someone shuts off the water.

“That was fantastic,” Gerard beams. “Seriously, guys. Like, if there was a class for this, you guys would be my star students. I’d be handing out extra credit and enrolling the two of your on enrichment programs in advanced fake fucking. You’re naturals!”

A soft and strangled yelp escapes Pete’s throat. He does not move away from Patrick. Instead, he wears him like a shield as his cock throbs into the small of Patrick’s back. Because Patrick is feeling rougeish and because Pete has had the upper hand in literally every interaction they’ve had so far, Patrick steps away and reaches casually for his towel. 

“Oh dear,” he says, arching an eyebrow in the direction of Pete’s tented underwear.

Pete glares at his own crotch with boner-wilting force. Then he glares at Patrick just as viciously. “I…” he begins, then stops, then tries again. “It’s a totally natural reaction to someone grinding on me. This is basic biology!”

Patrick pats his own soft cock. His grin would be best described as, to use a horrible Americanism, ‘shit-eating.’ “Clearly.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Mikey shrugs. 

“Agreed,” Patrick says, flippantly, still eyeing Pete’s cock. 

“Fuck you.”

Pete drips his way out of the studio: wet and half-hard and crimson with humiliation. He pauses in the doorway and looks at Patrick with such enduring _hurt _in his unfairly attractive eyes. Like he imagines he might be owed something — some lingering offer of professional sympathy, perhaps. An apology, maybe. _Sorry I got you all hot and bothered by doing my job._ Instead, Patrick smiles at him, sly and not remotely embarrassed. 

“Have fun,” he says, winking broadly in the direction of Pete’s penis. This could be the greatest day of his professional career — no, his actual _life._

The door slams closed. It seems Pete doesn’t have a response.

***

It’s inevitable that Pete ends up in the doorway of Patrick’s apartment later that night.

Patrick tells himself this even as he opens the door, as he looks at Pete and his disheveled hair and his wild eyes that burn with hungry curiosity. They are drawn like magnets, like opposing polarities. The pull of Pete’s body as he curls a hand into the front of Patrick’s shirt is as inevitable as the tide, or the sunrise, or the eventual destruction of the planet by global warming. Pete drags Patrick up against him and buries his face in Patrick’s neck. His breath is warm against Patrick’s skin. Patrick’s nervous system lights up like a fucking Christmas tree.

“I want to know,” Pete says with finality. “I need to understand what the fuck is wrong with me.”

Patrick kicks the door closed behind them. “There are so many things wrong with you I don’t even know where to begin,” he mutters.

“Thanks.”

“You’re so welcome. You’re a fucking _layer cake_ of issues and neuroses, you have a victim complex and so much internalized homophobia that your therapist probably needs a therapist. I keep waiting to find the bottom, the last fucking structural strata of your self-imposed martyrdom, but you keep finding new and interesting depths to sink to. But _this?”_ Patrick pauses, digs his thumbs into Pete’s belt loops and pulls them crotch to aching crotch. Pete makes a noise like he just fell into an electric fence. _“This_ is not wrong. I won’t ease your self-imposed guilty conscience over something that I refuse to feel guilty about.”

Pete pulls up and glares at Patrick, his face disfigured with self-loathing. “So why do I hate myself for it? Why can’t I stop?”

“I’m not your resident Professor of Prick,” Patrick says, rubbing his crotch in sloppy circles against Pete’s. Nerve, spark, sensation. Like fireworks. “Work out your own issues on your own time and stop trying to involve me.”

Pete looks like he’s having an out of body experience. “I want you to help me. I’ve never... I mean, I’ve done this before, but it’s never… I _connect_ with you, and I don’t know why.”

And Patrick knows he should say something. He should tell Pete that there’s nothing wrong with being gay, or being bisexual, or pansexual, or refusing to place a label on it because it doesn’t _matter._ Instead, he lets Pete shove him up against the wall and kiss him dizzy. Patrick licks into Pete’s mouth and tastes him sharp and hard. He twists his hands into Pete’s hair and he dares him to never, ever let go.

Pete pulls back and Patrick whines, because he thought it might last longer than _that._ Pete blinks at him from his impossibly beautiful eyes and licks his wide, soft mouth like he’s chasing the taste of Patrick’s tongue. Which is stupid, because Patrick’s tongue is resting in Patrick’s mouth and Pete could taste it right at the source. Pete shakes his head, like his thought process is a Magic 8 ball and if he tips it _just right_ he’ll get the answer he wants. Patrick’s own cerebral function is trapped very firmly in his penis, _thanks very much_.

“Is this… okay with you?” Pete asks, his hands sliding under Patrick’s shirt, his thumbs skating along the edge of Patrick’s coarse and gingery happy trail. It is a spectacularly unfair maneuver, tactically perfect, to expect Patrick to _think_ with Pete’s hands rough and warm on his skin.

It’s clear what Pete is asking. Is it okay to do this without any emotional involvement. A straight man’s curiosity. Is this what he wants? The last thing Patrick wants to do, hard and aching, is partake in an ethical debate on the pros and cons of whatever this is. What Patrick _wants_ is to get off: explosively, dangerously, with the force that Pete ignites inside of him. It doesn’t _have_ to mean anything. It can’t.

Patrick makes a decision and Patrick decides this: He can play the role of Pete’s clandestine lover. It’s been a long time since Patrick was offered regular orgasms from someone who has made it into Harper’s Bazaar’s Hottest Men of All Time. They can wring every drop of debauchery from this arrangement and Patrick can keep his heart entirely out of the equation. He doesn’t _want _to spend his life hating Pete. Not when he… feels other things for Pete.

This can be another role; nothing more, nothing less.

Patrick grins, showing his teeth. He decides to use his mouth for things other than talking and kisses Pete with such urgency that Pete gasps. This is fortunate, and Patrick seizes the opportunity to snake his tongue into Pete’s mouth. Pete yanks Patrick’s shirt over his head with such force he almost chokes him, Patrick shoves down Pete’s pants until they pool at his ankles, a sexy, sexy tripping hazard.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Pete gasps, and Patrick pulls off Pete’s shirt and gets his mouth over the coppery warmth of one of Pete’s nipples. Pete takes a huge and grippy handful of Patrick’s hair and holds him close. “Holy shit, keep doing that.”

“You have terrible tattoos. Really, they’re awful,” Patrick opines, then catches the bud of Pete’s nipple between his teeth once more.

Pete groans, hollowed out and desperate, his cock tenting his shorts. “That’s a mean thing to say. It’s really mean of you to make observations like that and then follow it up with… with…” Patrick ducks lower and mouths over the hideous tattoo halfway between Pete’s navel and his cock. “Oh, fuck, Patrick. Your fucking _mouth.”_

“You’re not fucking my mouth, darling,” Patrick pants, because it sounds like something Emotionally Detached Patrick might say. “Not yet, anyway.”

“If you keep saying things like that…” Pete trails off to groan, to run his hands through Patrick’s hair and watch as Patrick hooks his thumbs in the waist of Pete’s boxers and tugs. Pete’s cock pops free — a gorgeous thing — and Patrick grins a wicked grin. “Fuck. If you keep… _doing things_ like that, this is going to be over embarrassingly fast.”

“Now then, pet, who’ll be embarrassed? _I_ won’t be embarrassed,” Patrick purrs, kissing his way down over Pete’s pecs and abs, his tongue dipping into Pete’s navel. He nibbles his way along the line of dark hair that leads to the inevitable conclusion of Pete’s thick and gorgeous cock. He pauses, eyebrow raised and smiles his best, most devastatingly sexy smile up at Pete. “Oh, sweetheart? You _definitely_ want to watch this.”

Then he opens his mouth and swallows Pete down in a precise and practised motion. Pete howls. Patrick grins around Pete’s cock, lets his teeth press the faintest hint of threat into the tender skin beneath the head. He moves his head in skilful waves, opens his throat, takes Pete until his nose brushes the brackish curl of Pete’s pubic hair. Above him, Pete sounds like he’s speaking in tongues. Patrick is good for this. If nothing else, he is _good_ for this. 

“Stop,” Pete begs. “Stop, I — Can I fuck you?”

Patrick hesitates. The more he gives of himself to Pete, the more he stands to lose. Or maybe it doesn’t work like that. Maybe, if he hands himself over in huge, pre-cut chunks, then he can retain the rights. Maybe it only hurts when Pete takes without permission. Besides, it’s been too long since Patrick last got fucked. He _misses_ it. He nods and scrambles to his knees, seeking lube and condoms from the cabinet by the bed. When Pete tries to roll him onto his back, he resists: He doesn’t want to look into Pete’s eyes while they do this. 

“Like this,” he says instead, kneeling with his legs spread. Pete fits to him like he’s tailormade, Patrick’s body sliding into the bracket of Pete’s ribs, hips, dick. “It’s good like this.”

Pete licks the salt from Patrick’s throat. He noses tenderly at the hair at the nape of Patrick’s neck. He lubes his fingers and presses them to Patrick’s hole. “Let me know if I’m doing this wrong,” he whispers, punctuating it with a kiss. 

This is not what Patrick wants. 

“Just go for it, I can take it,” Patrick promises. 

Behind him, Pete hesitates. His lube-slippery cock strains against Patrick’s inner thigh, catching on the sensitive ridge of his perineum. “Don’t you need—”

“Why don’t you trust _me_ to know what _I _need?” Patrick snaps. “Now fuck me or get out.”

Pete takes Patrick’s cheeks in both hands. His exploration of Patrick’s arse is considered, pulling him apart and brushing his thumb over the tight, nervy heat of Patrick’s hole. Unlike his acting, he approaches this task with diligence, with _care_ that Patrick isn’t expecting, isn’t prepared for. He lines up cautiously, the slicked and rubbered head of his cock circling, circling…

“Fuck!” Pete hisses, as Patrick pushes back, as he fills himself to bursting with Pete’s dick. He can’t be a bystander in his own controlled emotional explosion. The only way to deal with this is to snip the red wire himself. Pete hooks his teeth into Patrick’s shoulder, his voice muffled through tendon and sinew and Patrick’s misfiring nervous system. _“Fuck…_ You’re such a fucking _show off.”_

Patrick doesn’t reply. Both because he _can’t,_ because Pete’s dick has replaced all sensible and rational conversational processing centres in his frontal lobe, and because he doesn’t want to, even if he could. This doesn’t mean anything, not even when Pete smooths his hands along Patrick’s flanks with deep and enduring tenderness. It means nothing when Pete grasps Patrick by the chin and turns his face and kisses him soft and lovely. Patrick lets go of a deep, gaspy groan into the hollow of Pete’s mouth, parts Pete’s teeth with a rough tongue and, with determination, he begins to move. 

It doesn’t last long. Pete is deft and strong with his hips, his fist tight and hot on Patrick’s cock. His trusts are clever and precise, brushing up against the swollen gland of Patrick’s prostate. Patrick rocks like this: back onto the dick and forward into the hand, an inevitable surge of _Yes! This! More!_ His body is a tingle from crown to toes, his hips ripple with the motion. Behind him, Pete gasps, stutters, sinks his teeth deep into the meat of Patrick’s shoulder. _Excellent decision,_ Patrick thinks, with Pete buried inside of him. 

He comes hard, arcing white across the pillow, his thighs, dripping down onto the sheets and over Pete’s fist. The world reduces to nothing then expands out endlessly, Patrick is caught in the centre of his own cataclysmic big bang of pressure and glorious fullness. He clings to Pete’s hands weakly as Pete slicks his sweaty forehead against Patrick’s shoulder and, with a determined groan, hauls him close for the last few strokes, fucking Patrick through it until each ripple subsibes.

They collapse, sticky and exhausted. When Pete pulls out, Patrick feels empty. He stares at the lazy rotation of the ceiling fan above their heads and ignores the cold and knifing dread in his stomach as he waits for Pete’s breakdown. Instead, Pete snuggles closer, his head pillowed on Patrick’s chest. He traces lazy patterns across Patrick’s stomach and feels… peaceful. Patrick cards his fingers cautiously through Pete’s hair. He takes slow and measured breaths. 

“Fast,” Patrick observes. “My arse appreciates it.”

“Fuck you.” Pete’s grin is bright with mischief. “One day, you’ll hurt my feelings _so much_ that I won’t come back. Anyway, no one’s handing out awards for _your_ stamina.”

Patrick hums in agreement and watches Pete’s profile. He is distractingly gorgeous, all lithe and compact and covered in terrible tattoos.

“That was… nice,” Pete whispers eventually. 

“Oh, I think we can do better than _nice,”_ Patrick mumbles into Pete’s sticky temple. He bites the lobe of Pete’s ear and feels him shiver. “I don’t want anyone to accuse me of being _nice _in bed.”

Pete props himself on an elbow and draws the pad of his pointer around Patrick’s navel. “Do you want to… hang out? Like, there’s a 7/Eleven nearby. We could get some beers, order pizza.”

The Bro Zone. Patrick forces himself to smile. “Did you want to stay?”

Pete shifts and looks up at Patrick from his endless copper eyes. Patrick’s stomach swoops and his palms sweat and he looks away before he does something ridiculous like kissing Pete softly on his kissable mouth. The tenderness would give him away. He is playing a role. 

“If you’ll have me,” Pete says eventually. He says it with such inference. 

Patrick doesn’t answer. It’s a lot. There is a lot going on and he’ll think about it later, when his brain is completely online and not fuzzy with sex and proximity to Pete’s lazy, sleepy scent. But he doesn’t tell Pete to leave. Instead, he closes his eyes and pretends to doze as Pete shrugs on his sweats and starts ordering Thai food. 

It definitely doesn’t mean anything.


	12. Chapter 12

The arrangement works. No one is more surprised by this than Pete.

This is not his first friends with benefits situation. He has a long and varied history of people he sort of liked hanging out with and  _ really _ liked having sex with. Those people were always  _ women, _ though, and Patrick is… not. Pete feels like he should be panicking more.

Patrick is... and here Pete runs out of words. A friend? That makes sense, because Pete likes hanging out with him, he finds him funny and witty and charming. Patrick knows more about cinema than any of the movie trivia games Pete’s sweet — but misguided — grandma likes to buy him for Christmas. Patrick is interested in current events and art and performance poetry. Patrick can converse intelligently in two languages and babble charmingly in three more. He is dorky and self-effacing and astonishingly easy to be around. Pete  _ likes _ Patrick a lot, and he thinks that’s probably reciprocated and he  _ thinks _ that makes them friends.

So, Patrick is… a distraction, maybe? That’s closer to the truth. He has nice lips and a nice smile and these killer thighs that stretch out his skinny jeans. Patrick stops Pete from thinking about the movie, or thinking about his ex wife, or thinking about anything at all. It’s difficult to think when Patrick gets on his knees and sucks Pete’s dick in front of whichever arthouse  _ film _ Patrick subjects him to. Yes. Pete is definitely distracted by Patrick.

Or maybe Patrick is a hazard. A time bomb ticking in the centre of Pete’s life. But that seems unfair to Patrick when all he’s done is look good and agree to provide Pete with regular experimental orgasms in the name of working out his sexuality like an AP Trig problem.

In short, Pete has no idea.

He’s figuring it out.

Right now, he’s  _ figuring it out _ in a bar in West Hollywood. He doesn’t own this particular bar, as evidenced by the clean glasses and the furniture straight out of a Pier One catalogue, but Patrick refuses to go to any of the bars Pete  _ does _ own because he says he doesn’t want to catch a Dickensian disease from the bathroom door handle. Patrick has no sense of adventure. Whichever bar they’re in, and honestly Pete has no idea what it’s called, it has wide, uncomfortable leather sofas and ambient lighting and someone is playing Leonard Cohen at a volume that qualifies as unconstitutional.

Patrick takes a long swallow of the craft beer recommended by the hipster behind the bar and looks at Pete with a raised eyebrow. “This is more like it.”

They’ve been doing whatever it is they’re doing for the better part of three weeks now. It’s going… well? Pete still can’t figure out which way he wants this to swing. Last night, Patrick got a loose hand around Pete’s throat while he fucked him from behind and Pete came so hard he swears he saw the face of God in the pattern on the comforter. So, that’s something to think about. Another time, maybe. He raises his own beer bottle and knocks it against Patrick’s.

Pete has to shout to be heard over the music: “Here’s to Canadian folk-rock artists and their assault on my eardrums.”

“This is an education,” Patrick shouts back good-naturedly, looking at Pete in that way he does sometimes. It’s not quite a question in his eyes, but it’s close. Pete brings their shoulders together, anyway, and Patrick leans into it. “You’ll thank me one day.”

“An education in  _ Leonard Cohen?” _ Pete asks incredulously. “I can hum Hallelujah. What kind of idiot do you think I am?”

“Do you want the list alphabetically or in order of importance?” Patrick responds playfully.

Pete licks his finger and touches it to Patrick’s cheek with a sizzling  _ tsss _ between his teeth. “Fucking  _ burn,  _ Stumpomatic.”

“Bloody hell! That’s absolutely  _ disgusting!  _ What is it with you and  _ saliva,  _ I swear to God…” Patrick makes a show of scrubbing his cheek with the sleeve of his cardigan, his nose wrinkled adorably.

“My spit? Seriously? That’s a thing that bothers you?”

“Yes, your spit! Keep it to yourself. I’m a walking petri dish of your assorted effluvium.”

Pete snorts. “This, coming from the man who  _ came on my neck?” _

“In my defence,” Patrick begins haughtily, “if you put your neck right in the line of fire, then what do you expect?”

“In  _ my _ defence, I didn’t say it was a bad thing,” Pete counters.Look at that. A conversation about the sex they’re having. Out loud, and in a public place, no less. This is personal growth. 

“You’re…” Patrick trails off, his brow creased. Maybe he runs out of words when he thinks about Pete, too. The idea is comforting. “Incorrigible,” he finishes eventually. Patrick says it with such fondness that it can’t be a bad thing. “That means—”

“I know what  _ incorrigible _ means,” Pete says, leaning closer.

Pete would like to kiss Patrick more than anything he can think of right now. Patrick has an eminently kissable mouth. Pete knows the meaning of the word  _ eminently _ because Patrick used it three times when he talked about the finer points of French cinema and Pete was forced to surreptitiously google it when Patrick slipped away to use the bathroom. This, Pete thinks, is evidence that Patrick is improving him.

“I—” Pete starts, his hand on Patrick’s knee, his mouth gearing up to say something ridiculous.

“Beer!” Joe announces, flopping down onto the sofa opposite and kicking his boots up onto the low glass table. They move apart without saying a word. “Spoken word?” Joe inclines his head towards the speakers, completely unaware of the moment he just ruined. “More like angry old dude yelling, am I right?”

“I mean, it’s Leonard Cohen,” Patrick shrugs, like Pete didn’t say anything at all. “If you’re playing Cohen quietly, are you even playing him at all?”

Joe is their chaperone. Neither of them acknowledges this out loud and no one has told Joe, but that’s what he is. A safety buffer. If they have another adult with them in public then the chances of the two of them making like George Michael and getting caught in a public restroom with their pants around their ankles decrease exponentially.

“It’s good to see the two of you getting along,” Joe says, shouts, over the music. There’s an edge to his voice.

Pete effects an innocent expression and blinks over his beer bottle. “Trick and I are the very best of friends,” he says, slinging an arm around Patrick’s shoulders. “Isn’t that right, English?”

The look Patrick gives him is cool,  _ cold  _ even. Pete shivers and pulls his arm back. 

“Friends,” Patrick repeats distantly. “I’m just popping to the loo.”

It’s a tiny reminder in a long string of tiny reminders that Patrick might not be entirely what could be referred to as  _ okay _ with all of this. Which is a long-winded way of saying that Pete knows he’s fucking up. He’s just not sure what to do about it. Pete is, emotionally, curling up and hibernating, content that he’s shored up enough supplies to see him through a long, cold nuclear winter. What happens next is Tomorrow Pete’s problem.

With Patrick gone, Joe leans across the coffee table. 

“Hey,” he says. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” 

He beckons Pete closer and Pete goes, but reluctantly. Joe is wearing an expression that Pete has only previously seen on Animal Planet.  _ See the Trohman in his natural habitat. A skilled hunter, he has separated a lesser-crested Wentz from the herd and, sensing a moment of distraction, he prepares to strike.  _

“What’s up?” Pete asks, holding eye contact warily. 

“I know you’re fucking him,” Joe says without blinking, so Pete immediately drops the eye contact and attempts to choke to death on his own saliva. “Stay with me, Wentz. This is the last thing you want in your obituary.”

Pete coughs up what has to be his whole left lung and then he glares at the tabletop with menace. This is because he’s too scared to glare at Joe with menace because Joe is wearing an expression that says he could break both of Pete’s legs without breaking a sweat. His expression says he would  _ enjoy  _ it very much. Pete has to think of something to say. It must be clever and collected and remove him entirely from this line of conversation. 

But Pete can’t think of that thing, so he just wheezes, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Did he fucking  _ say _ something? Because, hand to God, I’ll fucking  _ sue _ him, hand to fucking  _ God. _ I’m not fucking him,” he adds, remembering his point and hoping that he sounds convincing. “Why would you — I’m  _ not  _ fucking him.”

“Sure,” Joe drawls, adding an additional seventeen unecessary syllables, every single one of them disbelieving. “You’re not as good at hiding it as you think you are. You’re fucking horrible at hiding it, in fact. Like, you could try to be more obvious, but you would not succeed.”

“I’m not obvious.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

Joe raises his voice exponentially, somehow cresting over the anguished tones of Leonard Cohen, and shouts, “So, when I heard the two of you going at it in his trailer this morning, that was just a  _ really _ intense rehearsal session?  _ Fuck, Patrick, don’t stop, Patrick, harder, Patrick fu—” _

“Alright, alright!” Pete cuts Joe off with a wave of his hand and concentrates on the pulsing throb of what he suspects is a heart attack right behind his ribs. It was inevitable, really. He’s had a good run. He sort of hoped he’d have a longer run than this, but life is unkind and Los Angeles is ruthless. “How much?”

“How much?” Joe repeats, affronted. “The fuck do you mean,  _ how much?” _

“Are you going to make me say it out loud?” Pete asks, and Joe looks at him like he wishes Pete would go back to choking to death. Pete wishes that, too. There’s simplicity in choking to death. 

Joe’s eyes narrow to snakey blue slits. His thin-lipped mouth becomes thinner. He glares at Pete with a twitchy Gary Bussey look in his eyes. Pete feels the need to lean back out of the blast zone. “Do you think,” Joe asks furiously, “that even if I thought it might be fun to out  _ you —  _ and, for the record, it  _ would,  _ because you’re an  _ asshole —  _ do you think I’d want to do that to Patrick?”

“I don’t know what you want to do to Patrick. You barely fucking know him.”

“Go ahead and bite me, hotshot. He’s a good guy.”

Pete closes his eyes. If Joe does decide to murder him, he’d rather not see it coming. “Patrick is—” Pete starts, and then he hits that stumbling block. Patrick is… what? “Patrick is... my friend,” he says eventually, because he’s pretty sure that’s technically true. “I don’t want to hurt him, either.”

Joe looks like he seriously doubts that. “I mean,” he says, and then leaves it hanging. 

“Right,” Pete says, and stares miserably into the middle distance. It would be awesome if someone could turn off Leonard Cohen. Pete would appreciate it a lot.

“Patrick is my friend, too,” Joe says eventually. “And it fucking  _ sucked _ when he was unhappy, and now he seems… less unhappy. But in a very controlled way. And I don’t know if he’s actually happy, or if he’s just pretending to be happy because he thinks that’s what he’s supposed to do. I don’t know. He’s. He’s very British. About basically everything.”

Pete smiles at that. Pete also thinks about drowning himself in his beer. Somehow, he’s gone from a relaxed, casual, no-strings-attached fuckfest with someone he thinks might be his soulmate (platonic — it’s still platonic even if they have sex, as long as there are no feelings), to this intense, frowning dad-stare from a man who apparently intends to protect Patrick with his life. There’s a slushy, confused feeling just beneath Pete’s skin that he wants to dig out with his fingernails.

“I won’t hurt him,” Pete says firmly. He means it, too. He doesn’t  _ want _ to hurt Patrick. He’s providing Patrick with sex that is stunning in both quantity and quality. No one can be unhappy with that. Not even a repressed British actor with a fixation on French language black and white cinema. 

“See that you don’t,” says Joe, and his threatening eye contact doesn’t soften at all. “Patrick’s good people, man.” Pete doesn’t need this pointing out to him — he  _ knows _ Patrick is good people. “Also, so we’re clear? If you hurt him again, I’ll fucking kill you. They won’t find the body.”

This is a lot. Pete has had to process coming out, acknowledging his role in Patrick’s previous emotional distress,  _ and _ deal with a threat of physical harm. It’s a lot to take in. Pete is struggling. Before Pete can say anything else, Patrick breezes back up to the table and slips down next to Joe. Possibly, he imagines that this is a subtle and tactical maneuver. 

“A man in the toilets just offered me cocaine,” he says mildly. “Just came right out with it and asked if I wanted some. I told him not today, thank you. Obviously. Apparently there’s no etiquette to these things because then he asked the man at the next urinal. Sidling up to someone at a urinal means something  _ very _ different back home. Thought I might be about to get lucky.” He pauses and looks at Joe, then he looks at Pete, then he looks back at Joe. “Um. Everyone’s having a lot of fun, I see. Cottaging anecdotes not the done thing in Tinseltown?”

“I think I need another drink,” Pete says, standing.

Patrick frowns at him. “You’ve got half a bottle left.”

Pete looks down and that’s true. He blinks slowly. He just wants this horrible, twitchy nightmare to end. He doesn’t have to look to know Joe is glaring at him with the force of a thousand fiery suns. “Oh,” he says. “Well. Maybe water, then. Back in a minute”

He goes to the bar and doesn’t have to wait before the bartender descends on him, because he’s Pete Fucking Wentz and, for the moment, that means something. It would mean…  _ less, _ he thinks, if the truth came out. How many of the beautiful women would want to fuck him? How many of the desperate men would want to  _ be  _ him? When he looks back at the table, Patrick is watching him intently and there’s a lurch in Pete’s stomach where his self-preservation used to be. 

He’s fucked, is the thing. 

He’s so fucking unbelievably _ fucked.  _

***

Pete wakes with arms around his waist and breath, warm, on the back of his neck. His powers of deduction lead him to the conclusion that he is on Patrick’s futon and that — based on the light streaming through the uncurtained window — he spent the night. This is concerning, because there are no innocent reasons for appearing on the sidewalk outside of his co-star’s apartment wearing last night’s clothes and just-been-fucked hair. He jerks upright and into a headache like a tsunami. The location of his pants is not immediately apparent.

Patrick is already awake. “Good morning,” he rasps, his voice rusty with sleep, his chin rough when he hooks it over Pete’s thigh and blinks up. “Sleep well?”

Every one of Pete’s vertebrae feels calcified, scraping roughly as he rolls to his back and groans up at the ceiling. He is mildly hungover. His eyes burn and his hips hurt and there’s a low throb in his cock. He feels like death. A particularly well-fucked death, if death by fucking were a thing. “Yeah,” he lies. “Great. We should get coffee. Lots of coffee.”

Patrick gives him a significant look. “You stayed.” 

And yes. Pete stayed. He stayed because he was tired and sort of drunk, and because Patrick pulled him down onto the mattress after the last fun test of their refractory periods. He stayed because the bed felt warm and safe and because the sheets smelled of Patrick and somehow that made him feel at home. He stayed because he’s worried he’s growing too used to the emptiness of his house up in the hills and he wanted to remember how it felt to fall asleep to someone else’s breathing. He stayed and he doesn’t know why. He just… stayed. He doesn’t want to talk about it. 

“Right,” he nods. “Must’ve passed out, I guess. About the coffee?”

“In the kitchen somewhere,” Patrick mumbles, waving his hand. He’s lying on his stomach, his face buried in the pillow and his hair peaked in the back with dried sweat. “I think, anyway. I prefer tea. You’ll definitely find tea. Milk, for me. One sugar. Put a lemon in it and I’ll shove it up your arse.”

So, apparently Pete is making tea. He rolls out of bed and into his underwear feeling oddly out of place. Spending the night is a dating thing, Pete’s sure of it. People who are dating spend the night so that they can spend the next morning being cuddly and in love and making one another tea. Since Pete is not in love with Patrick — although he likes him very much, but there’s a difference — he should not have spent the night. The voice hissing all of this in Pete’s ear sounds a lot like Joe. God, Pete is now terrified of Joe. Joe is a terrifying man.

As he waits for the flimsy plastic tea kettle to heat up, Pete blurts, “Joe knows about us. This. Us. This.”

“Oh.” Patrick raises his head from the pillow. “I — Oh. How did he… I mean. I didn’t tell him, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Right,” Pete says. They lapse into tense silence. It’s not that Pete necessarily thinks Patrick would say anything, but Pete thinks they’ve been discreet. Prior to the sleepover, anyway, but he’ll stress about that when he’s woken up properly. For now, he avoids Patrick’s eyes by rifling through the shelves until he finds a yellow box with the word ‘tea’ on the front of it. If only interpersonal relationships with aggressively gorgeous co-stars were as simple as preparing hot drinks. “But if you  _ did,”  _ he adds, running a hand through his hair. “I want you to know it would be spectacularly un-fucking-cool of you.”

The kettle reaches boiling point and Pete seizes the distraction by pouring water into mugs and stirring. There’s a jar of instant coffee buried at the back of a cabinet. Pete decides to take his chances with the tea. He adds a splash of milk and a spoonful of sugar from the bag Patrick keeps with the tea. The result is nothing like any tea Pete has seen before. He takes a sniff of his own — black, no sugar — and wrinkles his nose. He takes a sip and wrinkles his whole face. 

“Gross,” he says, handing the other mug to Patrick. 

“Better with milk,” Patrick says, struggling upright. He takes the mug and sets it on the nightstand and then he turns to Pete. “I really didn’t say anything, you know. I wouldn’t. I think you’re an absolute coward and a total arsehole about… well, basically everything, if I’m being honest. But I wouldn’t do that to you. To anyone.”

“I’m not an asshole,” Pete says sharply, because he’s  _ not. _ “Just because I’m not embracing the fucking rainbow, or whatever it is you think I should be doing.”

Patrick demurs with a shrug. “If you say so,” he says, insouciant, and Pete snaps entirely.

“I’m not fucking gay!” Pete explodes. “I’m sorry if that’s upsetting for you, really I am. But I’m  _ not  _ gay.”

He says it with a lot of conviction for a man whose throat is raw from sucking dick. He is  _ not _ gay. There is a raft of female-shaped evidence that supports his claim. Pete Wentz  _ likes  _ women. Loves them, even. He scrapes his hands over his face like he can pin the heterosexual in place. 

“I’m not asking you to be gay!” Patrick snarls, turning a sunset shade of pink. “And upsetting for  _ me? _ It seems pretty bloody upsetting to  _ you.  _ Which is  _ offensive, _ just so you know. Your attitude towards gay sex is pretty fucking draconian for a man who enjoys regular anal penetration. God, it’s like you’ve never even heard of bisexuality!”

“I’m not  _ bi!” _ Pete insists, somehow more horrified by this, by the idea that what he is has a label, by the terrifying notion that he can’t just blame it all on Patrick and his mouth and his ass and his gorgeous, handsome  _ penis. _

Patrick throws back the covers, exposing the penis in a distracting way. “You’re allowed to like everyone,” he snaps, throwing himself to his feet and fumbling around for his underwear. “Attraction is universal. Gender is a fucking _concept. _Fucking _hell.” _He spins on one leg, hopping into his boxers. It is so charming, although disappointing that Pete can no longer see his morning wood. “No one is handing out little gold statuettes for Best Supporting Cis-Het Male.”

Except, they are, Pete thinks, panicking. The whole world is designed around a predisposed notion of masculine straightness, without grey edges or blurring. “You don’t understand,” he says quietly. “You’ve had it tough, and I’m sorry for that, but you don’t understand and you never will.”

Patrick pauses in the bedroom doorway, his face inscrutable and on the verge of shutting down. His knuckles are very white and so is his lip, with his teeth digging into it savagely. 

“Don’t tell me I don’t understand how scary it is to come out,” he says stiffly. “You can self-flagellate all you want, but do not presume to tell me that I’ve had it easier than you because I wasn’t too cowardly to admit it to  _ myself.”  _

Pete’s gone too far. That’s obvious, and also? Not something he intended to do. Patrick is on the verge of saying something else and, based purely on the way his brows pinch and his chest flutters, the thing he’s about to say isn’t of the happy, fun, sexy variety. Pete’s still not sure what he wants, but he knows he feels safest when Patrick is within touching distance. He knows he doesn’t want to find himself kicked out and ignored. He inclines his head to the side and gives a megawatt smile. He arranges himself among the sheets with an arm over his head and a hand on his cock and he hopes that this will be enough.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, and Patrick looks like he’s giving in. “Want me to suck your dick?” Patrick makes a sound like he just bit down into tinfoil.

He’s being unfair, but he can’t help it. He doesn’t want these feelings, but he doesn’t want them to stop. He is a confusing mish-mash of conflicting emotion and his dick seems like as good an outlet as any for all of the…  _ horror  _ he feels, at his own malfunctioning sexuality. At Patrick’s reciprocation. He wants to feel good and he wants to  _ feel _ nothing, and nothing wipes out his ability to string together a sentence like Patrick’s dick. 

“I’m not giving in,” Patrick tells him carefully, as he slides back between the sheets and kisses Pete’s pulse in his throat. “Just so you know. This is not a blowjob of surrender.”

Pete’s grin stretches. “Noted. I’m noting that down in my big book of notable things.” Then, he pushes down Patrick’s boxers and licks, slowly, over the head of his fat pink cock. 

Pete’s not giving in, either. 

He’s figuring it out. 


	13. Chapter 13

_ Are you excited about going home? _

Patrick hears it from everyone as they prepare to move the shoot to London. From the Ways, to Ray, to Joe, and Pete, and his sister, and his mother, and the man who makes terrible tea in catering. Even Gabe, who forgets all about the time difference and calls at three in the morning and has the gall to sound offended when Patrick tells him to piss off. 

_ Yes, terribly excited, _ Patrick says with a smile. Aside from when he tells Gabe to piss off, but in his defence, it  _ is _ three in the morning and he’d only collapsed through the door thirty minutes beforehand. But the truth is, Patrick doesn’t feel like he’s going home. Filming on location in London for ten days isn’t  _ going home. _ It’s work. Patrick will stay in a hotel, not his neat little house in Maida Vale. He won’t socialise with his friends, or sleep in his own bed, or go to see his family or his dog. Patrick will be working in the city in which he happens to live and then he’ll fly back out to Los Angeles and that’s not the same as  _ going home. _

There’s also the minor matter of transportation. Specifically, that there’s only one viable method to cross continental North America  _ and _ the Atlantic Ocean. 

And Patrick has never enjoyed flying.

The whole bloody thing unnerves him, which he thinks is sensible. It’s a  _ sensible _ thing to be unnerved by. He’s okay with spiders, and he doesn’t mind the dark, and he’s never been funny about clowns even when there were news reports about psychopaths dressing up in clown costumes and roaming the city streets like an episode of Black Mirror. Because  _ those _ things are ridiculous things to be afraid of. 

Flying is not a ridiculous thing. 

Patrick has...  _ questions _ about flying. 

For example, how does the plane get into the air in the first place? What, aside from  _ witchcraft, _ encourages it to stay up there? Where does the breathable air come from? What happens if it  _ runs out?  _ What compels a reasonable human being to launch themselves into the stratosphere to laugh directly into the face of God?

Patrick is a reasonably intelligent man. He’s aware he could answer any of these questions with an hour on Wikipedia but, honestly. If he reads about engines and O2 tanks and pounds of thrust, then he’s going to end up reading about how those things can break. He’s no psychologist, but that’s probably not helpful in the long-term. He’s about three episodes of Air Crash Investigation from a fully established, honest to God phobia. 

So, he sticks with his theory of witchcraft and he self-medicates heavily with Bach’s Rescue Remedy and he closes his eyes for the take-off and landing and he doesn’t look out of the window until he’s high above the ground. This, he decides, is a definite checkmark in favour of the BBC. Even when they sent him to Paris, he got to take the Eurostar.

It was a very civilized trip.

There were scones.

It didn’t involve laughing in the face of Newton’s law of universal gravitation.

“... so, the soup was fine and Harry  _ totally _ laughed about it, but  _ that’s _ why I’ll never be welcome at Buckingham Palace,” Pete says. He must sense that Patrick isn’t listening to him because he looks at Patrick. Patrick knows this without opening his eyes. He is fine-tuned to Pete. “Hey,” Pete hisses, concerned. “Hey, are you okay?”

They’re flying first class which Patrick can’t even  _ enjoy _ because he’s certain that plane crashes affect the front of the plane in much the same way as they do the back. Those who turn left when they board just get to burn to death in slightly nicer seats. God, Patrick is a terrible failure at life. It’s pathetic. He’s  _ embarrassed _ by it.

“Mmhmm,” Patrick says tightly, not opening his eyes.

“Cool,” Pete replies. Sensibly, he doesn’t ask if Patrick is afraid of flying. It’s very obvious. “Tell me about your house,” he says, instead. “What’s it like?”

Patrick is so startled by this that his eyes spring open. “Pardon?”

Pete grins a crooked, Wentzian grin and his eyes sparkle. “Hi,” he says brightly. “Welcome back. How’s it going?”

“Hello,” Patrick mutters. He’s a grown man. He should be able to handle a transatlantic flight without a minor emotional breakdown. “I’m fine. Really. You don’t need to—”

“Like, describe your living room to me,” Pete cuts him off. “Is there an ugly couch? You seem like an ugly couch kind of guy.”

“I am not!” Patrick retorts, irritated. “I have excellent tastes in couches. Everyone says so.”

“Name one person who’s said that about you.”

“My… mum is a fan.” Which isn’t a lie. She is.

“So tell me about it,” Pete insists, hooking his chin onto the divider and fluttering his eyelashes at Patrick in a way that is annoying and not remotely charming. “Is it pink? Is it velvet? Is it pink velvet? I bet it’s pink velvet.”

Patrick huffs through his nose. “It’s leather, actually. A chesterfield. I got it at Greenwich Market.”

“Fancy. I didn’t know they made  _ pink _ chesterfield couches.”

Patrick glares at Pete. It’s a particularly malevolent glare. “It’s  _ chestnut. _ It matches my armchair.”

“Of course it does,” Pete says soothingly. Then, before Patrick can retort, he says, “What’re you looking forward to most about being back in the UK?”

Patrick thinks about this for a long time. It’s not an easy question. Not really. He could tell Pete he’s missed the presence of actual weather, since Los Angeles is nothing but endless blue skies and heat and dryness. He could talk about complaining about the tube, or going to the park, or walking his dog. These are all the things he’s missed.

He props his chin on his fist and looks at Pete and thinks he could be... honest. 

He could tell Pete that the thing he’s craved the most over the past few weeks is  _ distance. _ It might be possible to stop falling in love with Pete if Patrick’s not in Los Angeles where everything is a movie set and nothing feels real. Patrick feels like he’s breaking open in slow motion, a tiny bit more every day. He cracks every time Pete touches him, looks at him, smiles at him. Patrick has to remember that, when this is over, Pete will not be there to put him back together. He thinks London might help with this.

This is what Patrick ought to say. 

“Yorkshire tea,” he says eventually. “A proper cuppa. In a real cup with milk and sugar and possibly a nice biscuit on the side.”

Patrick is a coward, but he’s never pretended to be anything else. He plays brave men. He is not one. 

Pete grins. “You’re so British,” he says fondly.

Patrick scowls and blushes, because it’s hard to know how to feel when Pete sounds  _ fond. _ “It’s been said.”

“It’s weird, I kind of can’t place you anywhere but LA. Tell me more about your house. Do you like art?”

“Are you trying to distract me from the fact that we’re hurtling through the air at six-hundred miles an hour with absolutely nothing but wizardry stopping us from plummeting many thousands of feet to our deaths?” Patrick asks mildly. 

Pete raises his eyebrows. “Well, I mean. Physics is stopping that from happening. It’s definitely prevented by physics.”

“Fuck physics,” Patrick mutters under his breath. “You can prove  _ anything _ with physics.”

“Well, good thing we’re talking about art and not physics,” Pete says, redirecting the conversation smoothly. “Do you have any cool art in your house? Who’s your favourite artist?”

Patrick sighs. “I want you to know that this is a stupid idea and it won’t work.”

“Humour me,” Pete says. 

So, Patrick reels off a few lesser-known London artists. The ones who are still cheap enough that he can afford originals that he hangs in his living room and his hallway and his bedroom. He tells Pete about his reckless habit for buying obscure vinyl and arthouse cinema prints and about the time he tried to paint his bathroom and somehow stuck his hand to the shower screen. Pete nods and laughs and looks delighted as Patrick rambles. Every time Patrick tries to stop rambling to look out of the window, Pete interrupts with another question, another silly anecdote and they’re off again. Talking and talking and  _ talking. _

It’s an obvious distraction technique. Patrick is not an idiot — not about this anyway. Still, he learns more about Pete during two hours of easy, pointless conversation than he has over the past month of fucking without talking. It’s nice. He  _ likes _ Pete. He likes this easy, directionless interaction that isn’t about work, and isn’t about  _ sex. _ He’d rather it was taking place literally anywhere else, but he won’t complain. 

“How did you know?” Patrick murmurs eventually. They’re served salmon and champagne and, okay, he could get used to flying if it’s always this civilised.

Pete’s brows pucker. “What do you mean?”

“How did you know how to keep me calm?” Patrick clarifies. Now there’s nothing beneath them but clouds, panicking seems silly. 

Pete shrugs. “I get panic attacks. Like, anxiety and stuff,” he says easily, like it’s not a big deal. As though it’s perfectly normal for someone like Pete to get anxious about anything, ever. “My therapist figured me out. Talking helps me relax. I hoped it might help you, too.”

Pete drops his eyes when he stops talking and deconstructs his carefully constructed smoked salmon. Patrick stares at the top of Pete’s head, where the hair is tufty from the back of his seat and it looks like Patrick has had his hands in it. Patrick wants to ask, Why do you panic about your sexuality when you have every other kind of panic so effortlessly under control? But their flight so far has been so… easy. Effortlessly unencumbered by Pete Wentz: Cis Het Male. The last thing anyone wants is an argument. 

Patrick shakes his head and takes a sip of his champagne.

“Thank you,” he says pragmatically. 

Pete smiles. “You’re welcome.”

***

Patrick falls asleep somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. He wakes up descending toward British soil. 

“Seatbelt,” Pete murmurs into his ear, so Patrick moves groggily, reaching for the belt at his waist. 

Instead of his tracksuit bottoms, his hands brush something fleecy.

He pauses. 

He opens his eyes and blinks carefully and looks down into his lap which is covered by a... blanket. 

Patrick doesn’t remember asking for a blanket before he fell asleep. Patrick is not wearing his glasses, which is another mystery because he was  _ definitely  _ wearing them when he drifted off. He frowns down at his knees.  _ Chewbacca  _ stares back at him. 

There is a hole above Chewie’s right incisor. Patrick wriggles his finger into it. He is as certain as he is able to be that British Airways do not hand out well-worn Star Wars blankets to sleeping passengers. 

“Oh,” he says softly. “That’s — Oh.” He looks across at Pete, who definitely does not have a Star Wars blanket. Neither does anyone else in the immediate vicinity. “Is this?”

Pete smiles at him and Patrick feels like he’s standing in a sunbeam. The warmth is endemic. Patrick smiles back, dazed. 

“You looked cold,” Pete offers. “I always bring a blanket. I don’t like airline ones.”

Patrick blinks at him, confused. His glasses are folded neatly and propped on the table. 

“Okay,” he says, automatically, because he doesn’t know what else to say. Somewhere between Los Angeles and London he seems to have slipped into the fucking Twilight Zone. Still, if the worst this reality has to offer is Pete being tender, being  _ careful, _ Patrick is willing to roll with it. It definitely beats vicious, machinery-wrecking gremlins hanging off the wings of the plane. 

Pete keeps smiling. It makes Patrick’s inside soften up, ice cream in the sun. 

“Welcome home, Trick,” Pete says warmly.

Patrick watches the patchwork of rolling green rise up to meet them. He is so surprised, confused,  _ astonished, _ that he forgets to be afraid. 

Pete has that effect on him. 

***

They start filming on the South Bank within hours of touching down in the UK. The production company shuts down a stretch of the riverside opposite Westminster. The pavement is shiny with rain. It’s dark and the river sparkles and Patrick, dressed in a leather jacket picked out for Marcus, feels like a tourist all the way through to his marrow. 

“Does it ever do anything but rain here?” Pete asks mulishly between takes. 

There’s rainwater caught on Pete’s lashes and in his hair and he’s backlit by the palace lights with shadows under his aggressive cheekbones and, normally, Patrick would think he was just about the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. But Patrick is jetlagged and irritated and would like to die or kill someone. He hasn’t decided which yet. 

“Welcome to London.” Patrick shoves his hands down into his pockets. “We ordered the weather in specially for you, petal.”

“Would you mind telling it to kindly go fuck itself?” Pete mutters into his steaming coffee cup. 

Patrick rolls his eyes. “Tracked down the green mermaid, I see? Priorities in order.”

“Sent an intern,” Pete shrugs. “What’s the point in being a critically acclaimed movie star if you can’t make a college kid scavenge you up a caramel macchiato?” 

He pronounces it car-mel. Despite Patrick’s vociferous dislike of portmanteaus and ridiculous Americanisms, he is helplessly charmed. 

So, obviously, he covers it with bitchy observation. 

“I don’t think it’s critical acclaim if it’s critics telling you that you’re not very good. That’s just criticism. I don’t know how to explain to you that the two are not the same.”

Pete produces a second cup from behind his back. It’s plain white styrofoam with a plastic lid, the kind provided by small greasy spoon cafés. He can see Pete’s assistant — Andy? —  _ wince _ at the sight of it. 

“Marine wildlife,” Andy hisses.

Which, not exactly fair. Patrick can recycle. That’s a thing he’s capable of. 

“Okay, well, if you’re being a bitch, I guess I’ll hang on to this,” Pete says, holding the cup just out of Patrick’s reach but close enough that Patrick is offered a tempting waft of steam. 

Patrick’s eyes widen. “Is that tea?” he asks, mouth watering.

“Oh, this?” Pete asks. “No, this isn’t just tea. This is _Yorkshire _tea. The poor kid went to, like, ten different cafés before he found the right one.” Pete takes a sip of his own cup of pre-diabetes with nonchalance. Melting cream stains his top lip in a distracting and attractive way. “Why? Do you know someone who might like to drink it?”

And Patrick — Patrick is  _ unfairly _ charmed by this. Because Pete  _ listened _ and Pete  _ remembered _ and Pete sought something out that Patrick  _ wants _ and he brought it to him on this terrible, rainy night when Patrick is exhausted and jet lagged and ready to  _ cry _ if he doesn’t go to bed soon. It feels… nice. It smooths through Patrick, a slow and pooling warmth. Pete’s grin is ridiculous, infectious. Patrick smiles back without thinking.

Sometimes, Patrick tells himself that he’s okay with the arrangement they have. Other times, he realises he’s looking at Pete too closely, smiling at him too fondly, joking with him, slinging an arm around him, watching films with him, being his fucking  _ boyfriend _ without the security of the label attached. Pete’s PA is still watching them. Patrick’s gut flops. He clears his throat. 

“Give it to me,” Patrick says, holding out a hand. “Just hand it over and nobody gets hurt.”

“Maybe I  _ want _ to get hurt.” Pete waggles his eyebrows. Yes.  _ Unfairly _ attractive. “Come on, Stump. Show me what you’ve got.”

Patrick advances forward half a step. “Give me the tea, Peter.”

Pete takes an exaggerated step back. “Come get it.”

Patrick lunges. The struggle is brief but well-fought and he emerges victorious when Pete remembers that — ow! — liquids in Starbucks cups are hot and Starbucks cups are not known for their structural integrity. Patrick takes a long and grateful sip of his tea and lets it fog in his lashes. They fall into a comfortable silence.

“Lovely night for it,” Patrick observes, for something to say.

Pete looks up at the sky dubiously. “Yeah, totally. Why the fuck are we filming this straight off the plane?”

“Marcus and Louis are jet lagged when they go out in London.” Patrick shrugs and stretches and feels his spine give with a satisfying crack. “Makes sense that we are, too.”

Pete wrinkles his nose. “Ugh.  _ Method. _ Have you noticed how method actors only ever seem to play assholes? No one goes method to play someone  _ nice.”  _ He gestures expansively with his coffee cup. “You know what I say? Just get up there and fucking  _ do it.” _

“You’re right.” Patrick looks at him, deadpan. “I’m sure, in years to come, they’ll be teaching the Pete Wentz method at the RDA. ‘Just get up there and fucking do it,’ they’ll say, to great applause. It will be revolutionary. Acting will never be the same.”

Pete is blowing cool air onto the back of his hand. His heavy eyebrows quirk. “The famed British sarcasm. You know it’s the lowest form of humour, right?”

“Haven’t you heard?” Patrick takes another mouthful just to break eye contact. “You can only call it sarcasm if it’s from the Sarcey region of France. Otherwise, it’s just sparkling wit.”

Pete’s laugh is bright and sudden. He slings a chummy arm around Patrick’s shoulders and says, “Your jokes are, like, the worst thing.” 

Patrick refuses to acknowledge the way his heart skips. It’s probably nothing. Maybe arrhythmia. Certainly not worth worrying about.

“No my friend,” Patrick says, shoving Pete off him and regretting it immediately. “I think you’ll find the  _ worst _ thing is your coffee breath.”

Pete looks shocked. Patrick wants to kiss his comically open mouth. “Hey! Fuck you, asshole!”

“Well…”

They’re interrupted by a flurry of activity on the set. 

“Okay, positions people!” Gerard calls out.

Cameramen move into place. The key grip and best boy hover with intent. Patrick’s makeup is touched up, his hair smoothed. Gerard and Mikey take their seats behind the control monitor. Everything becomes precise, controlled, there is no room whatsoever for errant feelings or thoughts beyond completing the next scene. 

Pete takes Patrick’s hand, the callus on his forefinger rough, his fingers warm and strong. This is something they don’t do when they’re away from the cameras, Patrick thinks suddenly. They kiss and they suck and they lick and they fuck one another indecent. But they don’t hold hands. It feels natural, though. Right. 

“And…  _ action!” _

Patrick takes a deep breath and slips under Marcus’s skin.

***

Inevitably, Patrick falls asleep in the town car on the way to their hotel. 

It’s late. Long past midnight, but only dinnertime in Los Angeles. Patrick tries to work out how many hours he’s been awake — nap on the plane not included — but dozes off doing the maths. The car is big and warm and comfortable and he lolls into Pete’s side and probably drools all over the shoulder of Pete’s jacket. He suspects Pete won’t mind. He’s too exhausted to be embarrassed. Patrick sleeps and doesn’t dream and doesn’t think about the warmth of Pete’s shoulder bleeding through his jacket.

Patrick wakes to Pete hissing in his ear. “Hey. Come on. We’re at the hotel.”

“Hmmph?” Patrick grunts, jerking upright. The Dorchester looms above them, the kind of expensive hotel that Patrick’s walked past a thousand times and never gone inside. Patrick loves it, though, gleaming white brick and towering glass. Tonight, and for the next ten nights, he has a suite booked in his name. His life has become a ridiculous fever dream. 

Of course, he ruins the illusion that he’s a suave and well-travelled sophisticant almost immediately when he trips on the marble stairs that lead to the front door. The ground rushes up to greet him. Patrick bids a silent farewell to his front teeth and then — then, Pete snags him under the arms and hauls him up against his chest. Which. Yes. Okay, yes. Patrick could spend a happy decade of two smeared against Pete’s pectorals. 

“Oopsie daisy,” Pete sing songs. 

Patrick snorts. “You’re — What the bloody hell? Don’t say  _ that.  _ You sound like my  _ nan.” _

Patrick realises he’s slurring like he’s drunk. He’s dizzy, woozy. There’s a possibility he might be more jetlagged than he thought. There is no other option but to collapse a little further into Pete’s armpit. No one is around to judge him if he presses his nose there, if he breathes deeply and smells Pete’s deodorant, his woodsy man-scent. “I’m very tired,” he declares. Pete laughs softly. “Might sleep forever.”

“Not forever,” Pete murmurs, his voice rumbling through his chest. “I’d miss you,” he adds, quieter, his mouth close to Patrick’s ear. 

Well. Now Patrick has to think about  _ that _ as well as his uncoordinated feet. If he trips and brains himself on an antique table, his obituary will be  _ hilarious. _ Pete walks him through check in and into the elevator and along a hallway and straight to a room that. Oh. Isn’t Patrick’s. 

“S’not my room,” he slurs helpfully. “My room’s… s’smaller.”

Pete deposits Patrick onto the bed. 

The bed is wide and soft and peppered with t-shirts that smell faintly of Pete. Patrick pulls one over his face — just to block out the light — and breathes deeply. He yanks it away when Pete begins removing his shoes. 

“Mmph?” he begins, blinking furiously.

“Shh,” Pete says, deftly tugging off Patrick’s socks and beginning to work on his belt buckle. 

And, oh.

_ Oh. _

Yes. That makes sense. Pete wants to have filthy-dirty hotel sex. The kind of sex where someone else is responsible for cleaning up the mess. The kind of sex where no one cares who might overhear because, tomorrow night, someone else will be on the far side of the wall. That kind of sex. That’s what they’ve been building up to, the purpose of the blanket and the tea and the helping hand up to the room he now realises is Pete’s. Pete doesn’t, can’t,  _ won’t _ feel the way that Patrick feels and that’s okay, because Patrick gets hotel sex. Lucky him. 

Patrick grins a sleepy, sultry grin and lifts his hands over his head, wrists crossed. He hopes he doesn’t look  _ too _ disappointed. He hopes he looks at least vaguely sexy. He’s reasonably sure he can do this without falling asleep halfway through. 

“Would you like me to suck your dick?” he asks, slowly, enunciating each word with care. 

Pete blinks at Patrick. In the lamplight, this close, his eyes are endless amber and terribly difficult to look at. “Uh,” he says. “Like. Yeah? Obviously.” He pulls Patrick’s jeans off his ankle and drops them onto the floor. Then, he pulls back the sheets from the far side of the bed and, biceps bunching attractively under his white t-shirt, he forcibly rolls Patrick onto the mattress and begins tucking him in. “But — Not right now.”

Patrick boggles at him. “I… What?”

Pete shrugs and lifts off Patrick’s glasses, setting them down carefully on the nightstand. Patrick has… a lot of questions. All of them, actually. Patrick has all of the questions. Including but not limited to  _ When did we ever share a bed for anything but sexy funtimes?  _ Unfortunately, Pete also chooses to take off his shirt. This exposes his chest and his stupid muscles and his awful tattoos and  _ God. _ Pete can beat Patrick to  _ death  _ in every single conversation because all he has to do is remove an article of clothing and Patrick’s brain melts out of his fucking ears. Pete pads around the room, gloriously naked as he changes into clean boxer briefs and Patrick watches him, blinking slowly, the covers pulled up to his chin. 

“I don’t... understand,” he says quietly. Which is an understatement. 

Pete climbs into the bed in silence. He plugs in his phone and he turns out the lamp and he curls around Patrick and he takes hold of Patrick’s hand. “Go to sleep,” he says firmly. “You’re exhausted.”

And yes, Patrick is definitely exhausted. But, on the other hand. “But, you—”

“Shh,” Pete hushes him, shifting a little. He curls around Patrick like an italicised question mark, all soft warmth and strong arms. “Sleep.”

“But—”

Then Pete raises Patrick’s hand to his mouth and kisses each of his knuckles gently in turn. Patrick has never had his hand kissed before  _ in his life. _ He makes a soft, embarrassing sound. Something that sounds like ‘Hhhgurgh.’ 

“Pete,” he says, and tries to put everything into one syllable, because he’s not sure he’s capable of anything more. 

“Sleep,” Pete says, like he understands. “I’ve got you.”

Patrick falls asleep quickly and thinks how wonderful, how  _ lovely _ it is to fall asleep with Pete like this. Pete’s  _ got _ him.

Fancy that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is it with holiday romances?


	14. Chapter 14

Pete wakes up. 

Which wouldn’t be unusual, except Pete doesn’t just ‘wake up’ because he doesn’t sleep. Pete drifts in and out of semi-consciousness, never sleeping, not really. Not in the way other people sleep. Not in the way  _ Patrick _ sleeps, stretched out and heavy and comfortable and totally unaware of anything happening around him. Pete doesn’t sleep much at all, and when he does it’s light and restless and peppered with vivid dreams. 

So, when Pete wakes up he’s so far under, so well-rested that he panics for a moment. He drops back into his own skin all at once, a dizzying rush of awareness. Hot and sweaty and flustered and  _ sudden.  _ He sucks in a ragged breath and feels his heart pound and then he becomes aware of a persistent hand on his cock and a mouth against his ear and a low voice that purrs, “Oh, good morning, flower. I thought you’d never wake up.”

If Pete must wake up, this is the best way to do it.

Pete makes the most ridiculous sound he thinks he’s ever made in his life. He tips his head back into the soft hotel pillows. He doesn’t open his eyes, just concentrates on the slow sensation of the hand wrapped around the hard and persistent swell of him, the mouth kissing softly across his throat. 

“Patrick,” Pete murmurs. Pete elects not to think about anything at all until Patrick has dealt with the aggressive heat of his morning erection. Patrick rubs his thumb over the tip, drags the slickness there over Pete’s shaft and squeezes with intent. Pete’s hips spasm upwards, his breath a broken gasp. It won’t take long to get him off. “Fuck yeah, just like that.”

“Do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you all the way asleep,” Patrick says, sounding amused. Conversational. Like they’re discussing film trivia over breakfast in the restaurant. If Pete were to open his eyes — which he does not — he’ll see Patrick smiling that knowing little smile he keeps for when Pete does something Patrick finds charming. 

“You’re so fucking charmed by me,” Pete says, his voice rough and hoarse, his eyes still closed. Patrick adds a deliberate twist to his wrist on the next upstroke, the heel of his hand rounding exquisitely over the quivering, nervy tip of Pete’s dick. Pete rescinds his earlier observation and sets about making the most ridiculous sound anyone has ever made in the recorded history of human vocalisation. He grabs at the bed sheets and wills himself not to come. 

“Am I?” Patrick asks lightly. His thumb maps the vein of Pete’s cock on the way back down, his grip just the right side of too tight. “I’m doing an excellent job of covering up how much I don’t like you, then.”

Pete grins. “I’m gonna do an excellent job of tossing your ass out of the goddamn window if you don’t get me off.” He likes the way their accents conflict, he is constantly enamoured with the way they sound in conversation. “Fucking prick tease.”

“Imagine the scandal,” Patrick replies, sounding thoroughly shocked. “A naked man plummeting to his death from Pete Wentz’s hotel room window. What would your fans say? What would the  _ press  _ say? Think of the headlines.”

“You’re naked?” Pete asks lazily, arching his hips into the motion of Patrick’s hand. “Mmm. You should’ve led with that. Tell me more.”

Pete’s whole body is a shaky tingle, crown to toes. 

“Nothing you haven’t seen before.” Patrick rubs his own thick, hard cock against Pete’s thigh and Pete’s stomach drops with lust and need and no lingering threat of fear. London is so big, so crowded and the Dorchester feels anonymous in ways that L.A. never does. In here, they’re untouchable. “Mmm, I’m hard for you. So fucking hard.”

“Mmm,” Pete hums, and Patrick shifts and his fingers brush Pete’s mouth, salty with precome. He sucks Patrick’s pointer finger into his mouth, then his index. Long, slow laves of his tongue streak them both, base to tip and back again. Patrick’s moan is melodic and linked on a silver thread to the throb of Pete’s cock. He pulls off. Patrick groans. “Tell me more,” Pete whispers. “Tell me exactly how you look right now.”

“Why don’t you look?” Patrick murmurs.

Pete grins. “I’m enjoying the sensory deprivation. The more I think about it, the more I want to look, so I’m not going to look.”

“You like watching,” Patrick says and Pete nods, his eyes still closed. 

“I do. I will. Not right away, though.”

“It’s funny how the real world only seems really real when you’re watching it,” Patrick says, in a tone that says he’s quoting something. Patrick noses at the tender spot behind Pete’s ear and gives Pete’s balls a quick, flicking thrum with his thumb. 

“Hmm, Rushdie?” Pete guesses. Patrick’s hand catches on the sensitive spot under the head of his cock and he gasps. 

“Anthony Burgess,” Patrick corrects. The slick sound of Pete’s dick in Patrick’s fist is so loud it eclipses the ragged gasp of Pete’s breathing, the soft and breathy sounds he makes with each stroke.

“Close,” Pete groans, and he means he’s close to finishing, to blowing his load across the expensive hotel sheets and Patrick’s hand. 

“Not really,” Patrick replies, and Pete thinks he’s talking about the quote until Patrick stills his hand, wraps his fingers around the base of Pete’s cock and squeezes. The pooling warmth in Pete’s gut chills. He groans, frustrated beyond all reasonable measure. “Could keep you right here on the edge for hours if I wanted to. For days. Wouldn’t that be a laugh?”

“Asshole,” Pete bites without heat. 

“That’s right, petal,” Patrick murmurs. Yesterday, when Patrick called him that on set it sounded acidic, almost an insult. This morning with the dawn filtering through the heavy curtains, with a hand on his cock and a mouth on his collarbone, Pete thinks Patrick sounds fond. “My arsehole and my cock and my hands, all yours.” 

“How about your mouth?” Pete whispers, groping blindly until his thumb brushes the smooth warmth of Patrick’s lips. Teeth nip tenderly into the pad. Pete smiles. “Is that mine, too?”

“I’m yours,” Patrick murmurs, moving up and over and straddling Pete’s thighs. “Now if you don’t mind awfully, I’m going to suck your cock until you see fucking  _ stars.” _

At that, Pete opens his eyes and lets the morning sunlight sting them. There is no way — no way,  _ at all _ — that Pete is going to miss the magnificent sight of Patrick’s mouth sliding slowly over the head of his cock. The contrast is exquisite. The pale pink and blood dark. The way Patrick is loose and sloppy with his tongue. This is the stuff they write Romantic poetry about. And Patrick knows how to suck cock. Pete lets him bob his head and arc his tongue until— 

Pete takes a grippy handful of Patrick’s soft, sandy hair and holds him back. “Can I eat you out?” he asks breathlessly. “While you suck me off, you know? Is that a thing?”

Patrick smiles, one corner of his mouth folding up. His eyes darken, pupils blowing out. Pete has never wanted to  _ do _ something like this before but, oh God, now he’s said it he wants and wants and wants. Patrick walks his fingers slowly up the twitching length of Pete’s cock. He lets his fingertip dip into the slit where Pete is slushy and wet and so, so sensitive. When he speaks his voice is rough and low and edged through with sweetness. 

“Well, darling. Now if you  _ don’t, _ I’m going to be awfully disappointed, aren’t I?”

And Pete has the fifteen seconds it takes Patrick to shift position to think about that, and process it, and convince himself that this is the sexiest moment of his life and not the most terrifying, even though he thinks it might be both and then Patrick is braced over his chest, all pale and pink and lovely. The look Patrick tosses back over his shoulder is smoldering. Patrick’s hair is a sweaty, charming mess, his spine an endless pale curve. His weight is braced on his hands and his hands are braced on Pete’s thighs. He spreads so beautifully over Pete’s chest. 

This is the moment to say something poetic, Pete thinks, looking up at Patrick’s profile; the sweep of his nose, the plump swell of his lower lip, his eyelashes a soft flutter against his heavenly cheekbones. 

“You’re fuckin’  _ smokin’ _ hot, dude,” he says, which isn’t very poetic, but the sentiment is there. 

Patrick’s laugh is exquisite. “You silver-tongued devil,” he says. Then: “Actually, I reserve that compliment until you show me  _ exactly _ what that mouth can do.” 

There’s a wiggle to his hips as he backs up into Pete and then Pete shuts down, goes offline, implodes away into dust as Patrick leans down and sucks Pete’s cock with long, steady pulls. There’s heat and tightness and just when Pete thinks Patrick can’t possibly take any more, his throat opens up and Pete sinks in further, wetter,  _ deeper.  _

“Holy fucking shit,” he whispers at the ceiling. The ceiling stares back impassively. “Oh God, babe. You’re — That’s fucking  _ incredible. _ Don’t stop, fuck, don’t stop!”

It’s unsurprising that Patrick stops and looks at Pete from over his shoulder, his mouth wet and pink and swollen. “Did you have any intention of returning the favour?” he asks archly, squeezing Pete’s dick in a way that kills off at least fifteen-percent of Pete’s functioning brain cells. “It’s not the fucking Tate, you’re allowed to touch the artwork. Now, fuck my mouth, there’s a good boy. I want to feel you all the way down my throat.”

There’s no way to feel self conscious when Pete’s not sure he actually  _ is _ conscious. He takes Patrick by his pale and gorgeous hips and pulls him down to meet his mouth. 

It turns out, there’s no sound sweeter than the noise Patrick makes when he comes on Pete’s tongue. 

***

The coffee house across the road from the set in Regent’s Park is bursting at the seams. There are film techs and interns and assistants and fans and autograph hunters of unknown provenance and people who see the crowd and assume something interesting is happening so they wander over to take a look and then they stay because  _ Oh my God, is that Pete Wentz _ ? In the centre of it all is Pete and he stands just behind Patrick, bracing up on his tiptoes to look at the menu over the swarm of cameras and flashbulbs and people shouting ‘Pete, Pete, Pete!’ like they actually know him. 

“This was a really bad idea. Even by the measure of your many other bad ideas,” Andy tells Pete as they’re shoved into the counter.

Someone knocks over a table. A coffee mug crashes to the floor and splinters. The manager looks like she might be planning an inventive mass murder. The scowl she levels at the closest teamster could start a nuclear war. Anglo-American relations have reached a new and devastating low. 

“What the bloody hell is going on?” Patrick mutters. His voice isn’t particularly quiet but the room is so loud that only Pete hears him. “Is this your actual life? How do you cope with this?”

Pete shrugs and says, “You get used to it.” Which isn’t exactly true, because there’s no getting used to photographers camping outside of restaurants and his house, or having them climb onto balconies to get a view into his hotel room, or having them  _ storm his wedding, _ a thing that played no small role in the short-term basis of the resulting marriage _ . _ But Pete has a good team and good people and bodyguards who are subtle enough not to draw attention to him most of the time. 

But he’s Pete Wentz. And it’s early summer in London and the air is warm, so he can’t wear a coat or a hood and he’s immediately recognisable even in his UCLA jersey and Bulls cap. Maybe  _ because of _ the Bulls cap. Wearing the Bulls cap was not a good idea. Pete regrets it, for Patrick’s sake and the sake of the poor coffee shop manager if nothing else.

In a weird way,  _ he  _ enjoys the familiarity of it. In L.A. everyone knows who he is but no one wants to talk about it. They pretend not to watch from the next table over in Starbucks and act like they don’t care. Then they post the picture they took on their phone, dragging his mainstream coffee order on Twitter. On the other hand, Patrick looks like he’s going to puke or pass out. Maybe both. Pete gives him a shoulder bump he hopes is reassuring. 

“Tea?” he asks genially, gesturing to the menu. “I don’t think it’s Yorkshire — does tea even grow in Yorkshire? Isn’t that basically Scotland? Wait, is it a brand name? God, of course it is, I’m so stupid.”

“Bugger this, I’m going outside,” Patrick declares. No one pays any attention to him, a fact Pete finds unbelievable. He wants to climb onto a table and yell ‘That’s Patrick fucking Stump and he won an Olivier!’ but he doesn’t because Patrick will kill him, or the manager will kill him or Joe will kill him.  _ Someone _ will kill him and Pete is far too young and attractive to die. A guy in a grey hoodie asks Patrick if he was ever in Coronation Street and Patrick shakes his head and pushes through the crowd where he disappears out onto the sidewalk. 

The crowd swells forward. Pete stands back and signs autographs and orders his coffee and then the security team bundle him out through the back door and into a waiting car. The set is no more than two hundred yards away. The head of security — Charlie? — spends the whole ride telling Pete he’s a fucking idiot. Pete quietly reassesses the idea that London might be anonymous. 

Wherever he goes, he’ll always be Pete Wentz. 

***

Talking scenes are the worst thing in the world to shoot. Most scenes involve talking to some extent and lots of scenes can be difficult to film for a bunch of technical reasons like remembering to keep jacket collars away from mouths, not blocking a co-star’s shot with a badly timed hand gesture, keeping the light in the right direction and never, ever looking toward the camera. Talking scenes, though? Scenes where the dialogue is delicate and expression is everything and there’s the roar of London traffic in the background and half the dialogue will have to be recorded later in a sound studio? Those scenes are the worst.

The scene they’re shooting now is relatively short. In reality, after editing, it won’t take more than three minutes of screen time. But it is taking  _ hours. _ Which means the natural light keeps changing. Which means Gerard and Mikey are constantly pulling them off set to adjust and line up and reshoot. Pete is going insane. James Dean didn’t have to deal with this bullshit but Pete doesn’t say that out loud because Patrick won’t hesitate to list the many reasons that Pete has no right whatsoever to compare himself to James Dean. 

Instead, Pete kicks idly at a clump of grass and looks at Patrick. Looking at Patrick is like looking directly into the sun. Or maybe an eclipse. Just when Pete thinks it’s safe, when he thinks the glare can’t possibly hurt him because it’s half-obscured, he looks right into the blazing core and goes completely blind. 

“You’re staring,” Patrick says in the aggressively polite British way that Pete knows he sets aside for rude drivers and catering assistants who put lemon wedges into his tea. “Didn’t your mother teach you it’s rude to stare?”

“Looking,” Pete corrects. “Not even, like, specifically  _ at you.  _ I look at lots of things. I’m looking at the park right now but your stupid  _ face _ keeps getting in the way.”

Patrick raises an eyebrow and Pete needs to perfect that gesture because it is  _ devastating. _ “If anyone here has a stupid face, I think we can agree it’s you.”

“You didn’t say that when you were sitting on it this morning,” Pete grins, sliding closer. 

In the coffeeshop, four girls managed to slip their phone numbers into the pocket of his sweatshirt. Cute girls, too. Quirky, fun,  _ gorgeous _ little British girls with eager smiles who’d welcome him to the UK with open arms. Open legs, too, if he wanted it. And Pete has always wanted it. This time, Pete feels no desire to call any of them, an unnerving development that he doesn’t want to examine. 

“Your world is outrageous,” Patrick says quietly, instead of acknowledging what Pete said because Patrick is the brains  _ and _ the looks of this operation and Pete just provides muscle and rebelliously teenage tattoos. “What happened in the coffeeshop was… Is it always like that?”

Pete puts both hands behind his head, stretches out his legs and admires Louis’ shoes. “Always? Nah.” Patrick relaxes, until Pete continues wickedly. “I mean, usually it’s like, a hundred times worse than that.”

“Oh, how marvellous.”

“I was shooting in Japan once — Black Cards — and word got out Bebe and I were in this store in Omotesando and everyone lost their goddamn minds. They had to call the riot police. They shut down an entire city block. It took my agent like, three months and a ton of paperwork to stop them banning me from entering the country again.”

Patrick whistles and looks up at the sky. He keeps looking up as he says, “Bebe, eh?” Pete hums in the back of his throat. It’s fairly obvious where this is going. “There was… crossover, wasn’t there. With Ashlee, I mean.”

“You’ve been reading Tumblr,” Pete says. 

“What? No. I’m twenty-nine years old, I don’t read  _ fan gossip. _ ” Patrick clears his throat. “I’ve been reading the National Enquirer and US Weekly and Gawker. Dreadful business, but the pictures...”

Pete nods sagely. “Yeah. Right. Totally reliable sources in the field of investigative journalism. You’re right. Honestly, you’re better off reading Twitter. At least the fans pay attention to what’s going on around them. At least they  _ care.” _

“Oh,” Patrick says softly. Then: “But, there was. Wasn’t there? Crossover?”

Pete’s sigh is huge. “Look. I didn’t go out of my way to tell the press when my marriage started breaking down.”

“Why not?” Patrick asks mildly. “You tell them everything else. Well.  _ Most  _ things.” He gives Pete a significant look that Pete chooses to ignore.

Pete sighs. “I’m a rom com actor.”

Patrick blinks at him. “So? What does that have to do with it?”

“Directors like us to portray what we play.” Pete scruffs a hand through his hair and says a silent apology to the hairdresser who spent an hour perfecting it. “Like… remember when that magazine leaked info that Tom Cruise was firing blanks? He sued them because he said that movie goers wanted to imagine him as the same kind of man he played on screen.”

Patrick looks baffled. “And he plays men with  _ tons _ of sperm? Just… cubic  _ litres _ of the stuff? That’s what I thought when I watched Mission Impossible: There goes a man with a lot of sperm.”

“The movie industry is weird,” Pete says, which is the understatement of the twenty-first century. “I play romantic heroes, the man who gets the girl, not the man who gets divorced. We kept it to ourselves. We — Maybe we both hoped we could salvage it. Then Ash started dating someone and didn’t get caught and I started fucking around with Bebe and  _ did. _ Those pictures you saw in Gawker? The pap who took them broke his collarbone scaling the wall around my  _ house _ trying to get snaps of me and Bebe by the pool? He tried to sue me, because he fell off  _ my _ fucking wall trying to get pictures of me on  _ my _ private land. Didn’t win, but….” 

Pete sighs again and scrubs both hands over his face. They continue to look anywhere but at each other. 

“But, no,” he finishes. “No, I didn’t cheat. I’m not — I don’t cheat. Ever.”

Patrick looks at Pete quickly, a dart of a look, precise and unerring. He’s not wearing his glasses and his eyes are a very clear blue. His mouth quirks at the corners but it’s not a smile. Not really. He says, “That’s… not strictly true, is it? You don’t object to overlap.”

Pete looks right back at him, meets his gaze and shoves his hands down into the pockets of his jeans. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never cheated. You saw what happened back there,” and he jerks his head back in the direction of the coffee shop, “how easy do you suppose it is to conduct an illicit affair when people follow me into the  _ bathroom?” _

Patrick’s mouth curls a little more but he’s still not smiling. “What about Ashlee and I?”

For a second or two, Pete has no idea what Patrick is talking about. This is a blissful bubble of ignorance, a momentary absence of feeling that lasts as long as it takes Pete to remember his trailer and a rejected copy of Consider the Lobster and Patrick looking so painfully  _ broken  _ that Pete wants to cry. The problem with retaining an image of International Playboy is that playboys don’t give a damn about the feelings they hurt and Pete — Pete cares  _ deeply _ about Patrick’s feelings. 

Pete is an idiot. For the past few weeks he’s convinced himself that he can separate the friendship from the physical. He’s told himself over and over again that it doesn’t count because Patrick is a dude and Pete Wentz could never fall in love with another man. Pete realises now that he is falling,  _ has fallen, _ he is  _ in love with Patrick _ and the thought — the actual, physical  _ act  _ of being in love doesn’t frighten him. This cavalcade of feeling batters him. He wants to crouch under his chair and hide from it. He also wants to roll around in it. He really wants to dive all the way down to the deep, blue bottom of it and drown himself in how rich, how  _ wonderful _ it feels to be in love with someone without expectation. 

Pete’s not sure he’s ever been in love like this before. Pete’s not sure he’s ever been in love  _ at all. _

He is dimly aware of the distant flash of a camera from off in the park.

“I…” he starts, then stops. This is ridiculous. He can’t lead with a declaration like that in the middle of the fucking park, with cameras watching them and Patrick convinced that Pete is the worst person in the Western Hemisphere. Which, okay. He probably  _ is _ the worst person in the Western Hemisphere. The media certainly seem to think so. He should set about clearing that up. “I didn’t have sex with Ash.”

“Not even once?” Patrick asks lightly. “Seems like she had grounds for an annulment, not divorce. Would’ve saved the pair of you a bloody fortune.”

“You know exactly what I mean,” Pete says, rolling his eyes. “I didn’t sleep with her after I slept with you. I haven’t — I haven’t slept with  _ anyone.” _

Patrick blinks at him. “Yes. You did. You told me that you did. You — Why would you lie?”

“Because… I was scared,” Pete says, and cringes. God, he is  _ such _ an idiot. “She came by to talk about a couple of financial things we still hold together. Then you showed up and she was right there and you were being all  _ sexy _ and  _ dorky _ and I panicked.”

Patrick glares. “You made me look ridiculous. You… You hurt my bloody stupid feelings.”

“You were sniffing my underwear, you already looked ridiculous,” Pete points out. 

Patrick sniffs and folds his arms. “It wasn’t your underwear, it was a t-shirt! I’ll thank you to stop making me sound like a sexual deviant.”

Pete laughs, then he stops. He looks at Patrick earnestly. “I have no interest in having sex with my ex-wife.”

Patrick looks skeptical. “But—”

“I’m a shitty person,” Pete interrupts. “The worst. You can do so much better — you’ll  _ do _ so much better — but I swear to you, I didn’t sleep with her.” It takes every ounce of self-preservation that Pete possesses not to take Patrick’s hand. Not to cup Patrick’s face in his palms and kiss him senseless. Maybe he needs to accept that this urge to kiss Patrick and never stop kissing him isn’t the Webster’s definition of platonic. 

“Right,” Patrick says, shrugging. “Of course you didn’t.”

“I didn’t!”

“I don’t care,” Patrick insists, looking like he cares very much. That’s the thing about Patrick; on set he is brilliant, a master of emotions, an underrated Marlon Brando of a method actor who shows nothing beyond what he  _ wants  _ to show. Off-set, with Pete, he wears his heart on his sleeve, but with reluctance. He doesn’t want to grant the world access to the softer side of himself, he just can’t help it. He is an eternal, undoubtable optimist, waiting patiently to have his heart broken. He believes in unselfish love, he just doesn’t believe in admitting it. He’s the opposite of Pete who falls in lust and screams it from the top of his lungs. Maybe this is why Pete loves him. God. Pete  _ loves _ him. 

“I’m not like that,” Pete says. It’s very important that Patrick believes him. 

Patrick says, slowly, “So… What  _ are  _ you like?”

Pete is trying to assess what’s happening. It’s like grabbing onto the tail end of a life raft in icy water and he can’t swim and his head keeps going under and his lungs are burning and if he doesn’t make it, doesn’t grab on, then he’s going to die. Like that, but less dramatic. Although, fuck it, Pete is an actor, he’ll be dramatic if he likes. 

Pete clears his throat and looks around. He makes sure no one else is listening as he leans in towards Patrick. 

“I’m into you,” he says levelly, his heart throbbing a messy pattern against his ribs. “Like, in a way that goes beyond admiring you as an actor. Like Scorcese and Rossellini. You’re my Blue Velvet.”

“They divorced in 1982,” Patrick says faintly. “And she didn’t shoot Blue Velvet until 1986. You know  _ nothing _ about cinema. Scorsese didn’t even  _ direct _ Blue Velvet, that was David Lynch. And it was a psychological  _ horror, _ what about this is—” 

Pete cuts him off. “I’m bisexual. I’m… I’m attracted to men. I’m attracted to  _ you.” _

And… nothing happens. London doesn’t erupt into fire and brimstone. TMZ cameras don’t fall from the sky. His agent doesn’t call immediately and a Daily Mail reporter doesn’t jump from the bushes. There’s just Patrick, smiling at him. It feels like a rock has rolled away from Pete’s chest. For the first time in his adult life, he takes a breath. Patrick’s grin is so bright, so warm, so utterly wonderful that it lights up the park, it lights up  _ London. _

“Oh, you ridiculous boy.” He doesn’t touch Pete at all, but he sounds so fond. “You ridiculous,  _ lovely  _ boy. Only you would spend a month fucking a man and think your bisexuality is a revelation.”

“You’re going to kiss me,” Pete says, grinning. 

“I am not,” Patrick retorts. “You’re hideously ugly.”

“You’re looking at my mouth,” Pete points out, and Patrick’s eyes jolt up.

“I’m not going to kiss you,” Patrick insists. “I have some self control.”

“You look like you  _ want _ to kiss me.”

“I always want to kiss you,” Patrick shrugs. “But now isn’t the time, so I won’t.”

“But when we get back to the hotel?” Pete says hopefully.

Patrick smiles a filthy little smile that makes Pete’s cock jump. 

“Oh, darling. When we get back to the hotel, I’m going to fucking  _ obliterate  _ you.”

Pete has no idea how he’s going to make it through the rest of the afternoon. 


	15. Chapter 15

“Well, I think it’s a shame you’re not going to call in and see me.”

Patrick sits cross-legged in the middle of a mattress so sumptuous it feels like sinking into sand  _ and  _ floating on a cloud. He takes a bite of his toast. Then, he takes the time it takes to chew and swallow his toast. He watches Pete’s back flex as he rolls and stretches and reaches for his phone. Immediate distraction. Patrick makes a weak choking sound and covers it up with a cough. Pete is going to roll over one morning, all abs and pecs and dark stubble streaking a line from his jaw down to his happy trail, and he is going to be the  _ death _ of Patrick. 

“The thing is,” Patrick says, tracing his fingertips over the dimples either side of Pete’s spine. Pete arches his back like a cat and brings his arse into Patrick’s cupped palm. “I’m convinced you don’t actually want to see  _ me, _ you just want to see Pete. You’ve created a scenario in your head wherein I show up at your office and Pete  _ happens _ to be with me and he’s wearing Navy whites for some unfathomable reason and he’s carrying a bouquet of roses. Then I disappear. Eric Carmen soundtracks the whole thing.”

On the other end of the phone, Patrick’s sister, Megan, sighs. “He was  _ so good _ in Black Cards,” she murmurs dreamily. “So,  _ so _ good. Should’ve won an Oscar for that role.”

“Shirtless,” Patrick corrects. “You mean he was so,  _ so _ shirtless.”

Megan sighs happily. “He’s just so  _ pretty. _ I think it’s rotten of you that you’re working with him and you won’t even give me a teensy little introduction. I’m your sister! He’s single, isn’t he? God, the things I’d do to him, if I—”

_ “Is _ he single? I have no idea. We don’t talk about personal things. Ever. Personal is not a thing we do.” Patrick shoots for cool and aloof and comes out as shrill. He is so shrill. The shrillest. He hits an octave known only to dogs and dolphins. There is no level of Lovecraftian horror that can match the thought — the very  _ notion _ — of Megan describing the things she wants to do to the man lying naked next to Patrick. “Besides,” he adds, as Pete rolls onto his back and looks at Patrick with a devastating lift of his eyebrows and a quirk of his full-lipped mouth, “you’re  _ happily married.” _

Pete grabs Patrick’s calf and lifts his leg, biting playfully into Patrick’s ankle then licking wetly over the arch of Patrick’s foot. Patrick does his best to look disgusted. Pete’s tongue dips between Patrick’s toes. It is vile and ridiculous and... magnificently arousing. Patrick has no desire to be desirous whilst on the phone to his sister. He kicks at Pete with his free foot and wriggles to the relative safety of the far side of the mattress. 

“I have a laminate list,” Megan is telling him, and Patrick would like to be excused from this conversation for the  _ rest of his life, _ because the subject of Megan’s laminate list is currently flat on his back with his cock out. “Which is a legally binding contract, and what Robert doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

“That’s  _ wonderful, _ Meg,” Patrick says, offsetting the impending stroke by gritting his teeth and looking pointedly out of the window. “Honestly, I’d love to hear more about your imaginary sex life with Pete Wentz —  _ me,  _ your baby  _ brother, _ the man with whom you share a strong genetic link — but I’m a busy man and I have lots of important things to do, so if you don’t mind...”

“Important things like getting your photograph  _ all over _ the Metro?” Megan asks, her voice brimmed with mischief. Then, she adds: “With  _ Pete.” _

Patrick shuffles to the edge of the bed and Pete follows him, his thighs either side of Patrick’s, his arms around Patrick’s waist, his nose brushing back and forth through the hair at the nape of Patrick’s neck. 

“What?” Patrick asks. “What do you mean?”

God knows, he’s been careful with Pete. They close doors behind them, they pull the curtains and they never,  _ ever _ touch one another in public. 

But what if?

Megan carries on blithely. “You’re causing quite the stir on Twitter, so my friends tell me. I’m almost a celebrity myself. Fame by association.”

“Megan,” Patrick bites out. “Where was this picture  _ taken. _ It is  _ very _ important that you answer me.”

“At the cafe, darling, during filming, “ Megan says. “You look hilariously terrified, honestly, I’m trying to persuade mum to have it framed. I’m hoping she’ll run with it for this year’s Christmas card. You look like a boggle-eyed puffer fish, mid-puff. You look like a half-melted sex doll. You look like—”

Patrick’s breath rushes out in a whooshing arc. The relief is a thick, palpable life force. He sags back into Pete and lets Pete take his hand, lets Pete kiss each of his fingertips in turn. 

“Thank you. Yes, I have a very silly face.”

Megan laughs. She sounds like a schoolgirl and not one of the youngest partners for one of London’s more prestigious law firms. “I do love your silly face, though. Even though mum loves me more.”

“You’re a horrible big sister,” Patrick tells her, tilting his head when Pete starts nibbling at his neck. Which, yes. This probably makes him a horrible little brother. 

“I’ll pass that along to Penny, who I am watching  _ for free.” _

“Don’t pretend you don’t love her. Tell her I said hi. Squish her face for me.” 

Pete reaches forward and brushes his fingers over Patrick’s pubic hair, where he’s warm and damp and smells of Pete’s mouth because they sucked one another off in tandem before breakfast and Patrick’s dick is still slick with the memory of Pete’s delicate teeth, his swirling tongue, his spit. Patrick bites off a groan.

“Are you okay?” Megan asks. “You sound… weird. Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m feeling fantastic,” Patrick tells her. Pete laughs into his ear.

“What was that? Is someone there with you?”

Pete licks Patrick’s earlobe then bites into it. Patrick’s voice explodes in a burst of hearty cheerfulness, just to cover the moan. “Right, got to go! Cheerio, love. Give my love to mum!” He tosses the phone down onto the bedside table and arches back into Pete’s touch. “You are  _ horrible. _ I was talking to my  _ sister.” _

“Mm,” Pete murmurs. “Your sister has a crush on me? Who knew fantastic taste in men could be genetic.”

“Megan has worse eyesight than I do.” Patrick rolls his eyes and pulls the complimentary bathrobe around himself. “She also has a thing for Bruce Willis and he looks like a testicle. So, don’t flatter yourself.”

“Mmhmm,” Pete hums, rubbing his stubble against Patrick’s throat. “You guys get along, though? That’s nice.”

“Yes,” Patrick agrees cautiously. Pete sounds like the idea of siblings getting along is a novelty. “I do. I like her a lot. We’re… in competition, I suppose. We’re both trying desperately to be the biggest disappointment to our dad. I inched ahead when I enrolled at RADA but then Megan made partner at her law firm and… Honestly, I’m not sure who’s winning at this point.”

“Your dad has something against success?” 

“My dad has something against his  _ children _ finding success. He’s got nothing against being successful himself. It just didn’t turn out that way and he’s resentful.”

Pete frowns, like he can’t see the difference. “Oh. That sucks.”

Patrick shrugs. His dad is okay and Patrick’s relationship with him is complicated if he thinks about it, so he doesn’t think about it. They exchange Christmas cards and call one another for birthdays and have ten minutes of stilted conversation, then radio silence until next time. This is not a thing Patrick wants to talk about.

“It’s fine. Not a big deal.”

“You don’t like your dad?” Pete says, and makes a soft noise of disapproval as Patrick disentangles himself and stands and pours coffee from the cafetiere someone brought in twenty minutes ago while Patrick was in the shower. 

“I…” And Patrick trails off. He thinks. “I don’t  _ dislike _ my dad. And I don’t think he dislikes me. We just… don’t understand one another. At all.”

“The gay thing?” Pete asks. Which. No. It’s not like that. It doesn’t have to  _ always _ be about that. Patrick winces. 

“I mean, it probably didn’t  _ help,”  _ Patrick says with a shrug, concentrating on adding milk to his coffee. “But no, he’s not a raging homophobe, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not everyone is.”

“I don’t think  _ everyone  _ is homophobic,” Pete shrugs. “I think  _ Hollywood _ is homophobic.”

“Okay,” Patrick says, and takes a sip of his coffee. “If you say so.”

“I  _ don’t.” _

They fall silent as Pete tugs on a pair of boxer briefs. They haven’t really spoken about Pete’s epiphany in the park because, last night, Patrick was too busy falling on Pete the moment they fell through the door and then this morning there was more sex and then breakfast and Megan’s phonecall and now Patrick doesn’t know how to bring it up. He doesn’t want Pete to take it back. Patrick has spent so long carefully defending himself from Pete — Pete’s acting, Pete’s charm, Pete’s hands, eyes, mouth. Now that it matters, he’s not sure he knows how to let Pete inside. 

So, Patrick rehearses an apology in his head as Pete digs through his case and pulls on a muscle tank that showcases his obliques and his shoulders and Patrick, like throwing himself into the centre of the sun, wants to  _ die _ from how hot it makes him feel _ . _ Pete never covers up if he can help it. Pete believes nudity is a constitutional right and divests himself of pants the moment he crosses any threshold. Pete wearing a shirt is an obvious sign, to Patrick at least, that Pete is not comfortable with the turn in their conversation. But the shirt says Suck My Richard and there’s only so much Patrick can take so he rehearses an apology in his head. He doesn’t want to mess this up again. 

He starts: “I—”

“Shh.” 

Pete takes Patrick’s face in both of his hands and brushes his thumb over Patrick’s mouth and he smiles, sweet and soft and lovely and Patrick is still wearing the fucking  _ bathrobe.  _

“I don’t want to fight,” Pete says. “Not when you look as sexy as you do right now.”

“I’m wearing a fucking bathrobe,” Patrick grumbles. “This isn’t sexy. And do you ever think about anything but sex?”

“Never, and it’s a nice bathrobe,” Pete opines. Which it is. It’s a  _ lovely _ bathrobe. Quite the loveliest bathrobe Patrick has ever worn. But that’s not the point. “See how easily I can get my hands on you when you’re wearing it?” And Pete dips his hands into the front of the bathrobe and strokes Patrick’s sides, his hips, his thumbs brushing over Patrick’s nipples. And, okay. Maybe  _ that’s _ the point. “I don’t think you should bad mouth the bathrobe. It’s my favourite.”

Patrick’s cock fills with each throb of his pulse. It stands, stiff and obvious between them, dusky red, nudging under the hem of Pete’s shirt and rubbing against Pete’s stomach, his tattoo. Nerve, spark, sensation. Nerve, spark, sensation. Patrick does his best to look entirely indifferent. He also tries to avoid grinding his cock into Pete. 

“I would like the  _ option _ of not wearing a bathrobe—”

“That’s  _ definitely  _ an option,” Pete grins wickedly and, with a practised flick of Pete’s wrists, Patrick is no longer wearing the bathrobe. It puddles on the floor at their feet. “See?”

“Incorrigible,” Patrick says fondly, then gasps as Pete bites his collarbone. “But seriously. I have to travel three floors just to get clean underpants. It’s annoying. Anything could happen to me. Can we sleep in  _ my _ room sometimes?”

Pete laughs and sucks an ombre mark into Patrick’s chest. “You should move your bags in here.”

“What?” Patrick says. Because… what?

“Your bags,” Pete says, not looking up from where he is, apparently, engrossed in Patrick’s collarbone. “You should bring them here.”

Patrick stares at Pete and then replies slowly, “Are you… asking me to move in with you?”

Pete grins and says, “You make it sound so dramatic. I’m asking you to share my hotel room, that’s all.”

Common sense tells Patrick that he should find an excuse. “I mean, that’s very generous of you, but—”

“Patrick,” Pete says firmly. “You’re free to leave at any time, I promise. This isn’t the Hotel California. Just stay here, you know it makes sense.”

Pete looks at Patrick with his astonishingly bright eyes. He’s still smiling, but with vulnerability under the machismo. Patrick is struck by the sudden notion that Pete wants so much, so hugely, he doesn’t know how to contain it, how to protect himself. Patrick wants to stay in Pete’s room with him so much it makes his chest hurt. Patrick is terrible at protecting himself, too. He nods. 

“Okay,” Patrick says. “Alright, fine, you twisted my arm. I’ll fetch my case after filming, and—”

“Get someone else to do it,” Pete cuts him off and Patrick frowns, puzzled. Pete clarifies. “You don’t — It’s probably not great if someone sees you dragging your suitcase into my room. Someone else can do it. You know?” 

Patrick grins at Pete, and doesn’t think about adding another secret on top of the rest. The deceit stacks up, one on top of the other, and Patrick doesn’t notice because Patrick is smitten by Pete. Pete probably doesn’t notice either, because Pete is probably smitten, too. It’s very easy not to notice things when one is thoroughly, utterly smitten. Patrick doesn’t question it, where this is going, how long Pete intends to keep ‘them’ hidden, because Patrick is in love with the idea of being in love with Pete. The practicalities will come later. They’ll figure it out. 

“Yes,” Patrick says, his eyes falling closed as Pete drops to his knees and mouths sloppily over Patrick’s thighs. “Yeah, that sounds great.”

***

They carry on filming. Patrick calls the reception desk and asks for a concierge to move his bags from his room to Pete’s. No one asks any awkward questions. Patrick hands a ludicrous tip to the liveried doorman who knocks on the door to the suite and takes his case and dumps it on the floor next to Pete’s. Pete is in the shower at the time but he grins when he sees the cases side by side. Pete’s wearing nothing but a towel, and he tackles Patrick down onto the bed and fucks him until Patrick forgets, in no particular order, the day of the week, his own name, and how to use compound verbs. 

Language is a construct. They speak a universal tongue and Patrick is fluent. When they’re alone, the only word he needs is  _ Pete. _

Patrick avoids his house, but not because it’s method and not because he’s working. He avoids his house because he’s worried he won’t fit into it anymore. Working with the Ways, being with Pete, living in Los Angeles, filming the kind of movie that justifies early hype in Empire and has critics tossing around ‘Academy award’ before filming has wrapped, these things have  _ expanded _ Patrick in a non-physical sense. London feels smaller. If the wide open stretches of Oxford Street and Hyde Park and Hampstead Heath feel like they’re crushing him, how will his house feel? How will his  _ bedroom _ feel, with a bed Pete hasn’t slept in and shirts in the wardrobe that don’t smell faintly of CK Eternity? 

Patrick is trying very hard to separate himself into two people, and it terrifies him that he’s finding it so difficult. He’s made a living from doing just that, from his ability to slip into another skin but now it matters, now his heart is on the line, Patrick finds he can’t do it. He has fallen in love with Pete. He is hopelessly, frighteningly in love with Pete. He would give anything for Pete, sacrifice whatever was asked of him if it might make Pete happy. God, he’s even given up on only fucking Pete in positions where they don’t have to look at one another. Patrick lets Pete fuck him when Patrick’s on his back — slow and deep, with rolling undulations of Pete’s hips that pull noises from Patrick’s throat he’d forgotten he could make — he lets Pete kiss him, lets him rest their foreheads together and link their fingers against the mattress and he… he…

Patrick  _ loves _ it. Despite all of the best intentions, Patrick  _ is _ imagining a life with Pete. Patrick knows his heart will be broken, but it doesn’t stop him hoping that it won’t. 

So, they film. They film and they fuck and the more they do the latter, the better they are at the former. One day, the film will be all that’s left, Patrick thinks. So he does his best. He stops thinking about it. He enjoys the fucking and the filming and the time in London feels like a vacation and the time in Los Angeles starts to feel like his real life. And Patrick is so, so confused and maybe he should go completely L.A. and get himself a therapist. 

That feels like giving in, though. 

Patrick sits in to feed Pete his lines during a hotel room scene. They’ve moved into the Royal Suite of the Corinthia for filming and it’s the most luxurious hotel room Patrick has ever seen. There are silk sofas and parquet flooring and wooden panelling and original artwork and a spiral staircase winding up to the second floor. The  _ second _ floor. Because one isn’t enough for a hotel room. There’s a roof terrace and views across the Thames and it makes The Dorchester look like a Best Western. The filming costs must match the GDP of a small European country. 

It’s the first time Patrick has really watched Pete  _ act _ as an observer, without thinking about his own performance, his positioning, his angle, his voice, the cameras. Patrick sits in a folding chair flanked by Gerard and Mikey and Ray the AD who smiles at him and offers him room temperature water and he feeds the lines to Pete and watches him parry them back easily.

And Patrick realises something.

Pete is… good. 

No, that’s not fair. Pete is better than good. Pete has become  _ spectacular.  _ There’s nuance to every movement he makes, his dialogue is delivered without obvious thought. He has, despite all indications to the contrary, become Louis. He’s not as good as Patrick, but he’s close. He’s learning. He’s trying. Patrick didn’t imagine this would happen but he supposes that, if it  _ did, _ he would feel… jealous. Threatened, maybe. Instead, he feels proud. 

Filming wraps and the crew heads out into Soho to celebrate. They’re ushered into the VIP area where they can’t hear themselves talk over thumping dance music but everyone’s so relaxed that no one pays attention when Pete drops down onto a sofa next to Patrick and throws his arm along the backrest, his fingers toying with the hair at Patrick’s nape. It doesn’t mean anything — obviously — but Patrick files it away to examine later, anyway. It’s the sort of moment no one can take away from him. So he treasures it and doesn’t make a big deal out of it and Pete leans closer and rests his grinning mouth against Patrick’s ear. 

“One day, I’ll take you out on a real date,” he murmurs. “Somewhere a hell of a lot classier than this.”

“This is classy,” Patrick says. “You can tell it’s classy because the tops of the toilets are flat,” Patrick mimes snorting a line of coke, which Pete seems to find hilarious, “I don’t know where we go from here.”

“Snorted a lot of coke in your time?” Pete asks. 

“Darling,” Patrick says, and he’s being pretentious and arthouse so he gets away with it, even in public. “Darling, how much inositol have I bumped during this shoot? Marcus is more cocaine than man. He’s fuelled by narcotics and hubris and spite. He’s everything I aspire to be.”

“So, you didn’t get any practice in at college?” Pete asks. 

Patrick changes the subject. “Hmm. Have you enjoyed your time here?”

“London?” Pete’s mouth quirks. “Yeah, it’s great. I don’t spend enough time here.”

Patrick grimaces. “Oh  _ God, _ don’t go getting ideas about buying a house here. The last thing I need is Pete Wentz as a neighbour. The property market has only just recovered from the economic downturn.”

“Fuck you, I would increase real estate value like Vanilla fucking Ice.”

“I don’t think I’d want Vanilla Ice living next door to me, either,” Patrick points out, taking a casual sip of his whisky and soda. “But, you know. If you ever wanted to come back to London for a visit, I do have plenty of room at my place. Jesus. Forget I said that. I was — Why the hell would you want to — I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I would stay with you,” Pete says easily.

Patrick sighs. “You don’t have to humour me.”

“I’m not.”

“Just — Can we talk about something else?”

Patrick stares into his drink in miserable silence. He wants to bite off his tongue. What does he imagine they’re going to do — cosy trips to one another’s houses, sightseeing both sides of the Atlantic, exchanging messages on Twitter like good, hetereosexual friends. They won’t stay in touch after this. Filming is peculiar like that: best friends for two months, then everyone goes their separate ways. 

“We have a day off tomorrow,” Pete observes, so casual. 

“We do,” Patrick confirms, nodding. 

“Did you have any specific plans?” Pete hedges. “Or will you seize the day?”

Patrick has never seized the day in his life. Patrick is a man bereft without specific plans. Patrick wrote out his life plan — and stuck to it — at the age of 13. “Beyond sleeping, eating and watching terrible telly?” he asks lightly. “No, not really. Why?”

Pete probably has vague plans about not leaving the hotel room. Which is fine with Patrick. 

Then, Pete shrugs and says, “I thought we could go and see London. Together.”

“Last time we went out in London we ended up on the front page of the Metro,” Patrick sighs. “I don’t think—”

“It’s different, without a camera crew. People don’t pay attention, if they do I sign a couple autographs, take some pictures, no big deal. Please?” Pete blinks at Patrick from his impossible amber eyes. “I hear locals make the best tour guides.”

And Patrick caves, because of course he does. Because he’ll never say no to Pete. “Fine. But if we end up causing an international incident on Regent Street, I will  _ strangle _ you.”

“In a fun, sexy way? I think I might be into that.”

“In a scary, murder way,” Patrick assures him. 

“You wouldn’t murder me, you like me too much,” Pete insists, with another one of his mesmerising grins.

Patrick presses his mouth right to Pete’s ear and murmurs. “You’re lucky I…  _ like _ you.” Then, he adds, “God, I’ve had too much to drink,” for posterity. For plausible deniability in the morning.

“And if you _like _me, you’ll show me London,” Pete wheedles. 

Patrick caves. “Fine. We’ll take in the sights. But you’re organising a driver, I’m not getting pushed onto the tube tracks because you want to see Big fucking Ben.”

“Awesome,” Pete grins. “It’s a date.”

“It’s an excursion,” Patrick corrects.

“I  _ like  _ you, too,” Pete whispers into his ear. “And I’m not drunk. Neither are you.”

Patrick huffs and takes himself off into the bathroom and sits on the closed toilet seat with the door locked and his hot forehead pressed to the wall until someone starts to vomit in the next stall. When he goes back outside, Joe falls onto him and pushes another drink in his hand and Pete gives him a slow, lingering smile from over by the bar. Patrick is terrified. Patrick is in love.


	16. Chapter 16

Pete goes on their date incognito.

This is Patrick’s idea. “Dress down,” he says, as he disappears into the shower, “Try to look less… Wentzian.” He doesn’t elaborate and he doesn’t let Pete follow him into the bathroom.

Left unsupervised, Pete rifles through his bags and picks an outfit. 

“This is a bad idea,” says Andy from the chair in the corner of the living room. “You know the Stentz hashtag is trending like _ whoa _right now, don’t you? Like, it’s something about a royal baby, Taylor Swift’s fans being weird as fuck, and then you guys. Stentzin’ it up. Livin’ your Stentz life.”

“Nothing about social media is permanent,” Pete philosophises, shrugging out of his t-shirt. “Remember that time everyone decided I was fucking Ashlee—”

“You were, though. You were totally fucking Ashlee. Fucking Ashlee was a thing you were doing.”

“—it’s just media buzz. No one cares about it the next day.” Pete looks in the mirror and grins at his own reflection, and Andy’s reflection over his shoulder. “Besides, everyone has a theory on who I’m fucking.”

“My point is,” Andy says, swinging around in his chair, “they’re pretty much always right. You are, like, not as subtle as you think you are. You’re not subtle at all. There are _ rocks _ with more nuance than you, my friend. Does Patrick know it’s trending?”

Patrick does not, as far as Pete knows, venture onto Twitter. The likelihood of Patrick setting up an account and then having the presence of mind, natural curiosity, or self-absorbed notion, to go looking for himself in trending tags, is about as likely as Patrick running the bases naked on Wrigley Field. Patrick probably thinks ‘googling yourself’ is slang for masturbation. Patrick hasn’t spent a decade viewed through a lens. It’s best it stays that way.

“Yep,” Pete lies. 

“Hmm,” says Andy, like he doesn’t believe Pete at all. 

“Well, this has been fun, but I’m a busy guy. Places to be,” Pete says, pulling on his shoes and running a hand through his hair. Then he trots downstairs to wait for Patrick.

He sits in the lounge bar of the Dorchester, half-hidden behind a copy of Hello magazine. It’s not even ten in the morning, the bar itself is quiet and Pete can’t people watch. Pete orders coffee and croissants. The waiter gives him a concerned glance as he sets the plates and dishes on the table, so clearly the disguise is effective. Pete is halfway through the magazine by the time he finishes breakfast. He has no idea what The Only Way is Essex _ is, _but the articles are thorough enough that he could take a pop quiz on the daily habits of someone named Joey Essex and ace it. Hands down.

By the time he finishes the magazine, there’s still no sign of Patrick. Pete flicks through his social media feeds and replies to a few tweets he’s been ignoring. He emails his agent about a possible cameo in a kids show. He orders a tennis ball launcher from Amazon and then realises he has no use for a tennis ball launcher. He googles tennis lessons, instead of cancelling it. Patrick still doesn’t show and Pete sighs. He is more bored than a particularly bored thing.

Pete starts to think Patrick might have stood him up. That would be gorgeous, wouldn’t it? All dressed up and nowhere to go. 

Then, from out of the foyer, a wild Patrick approaches. The first thing Pete notes is that Patrick isn’t wearing his glasses, or a hat. Instead, he’s done some kind of twitchy, swishy thing with his coppery bangs that sweeps them up and over his brow. He’s wearing black skinny jeans and an acid wash ombre button down with the sleeves rolled up like a Hollywood darling. Pete almost expects to see a carton of cigarettes tucked into the fold above Patrick’s bicep. He hasn’t laced his black leather biker boots. He looks like James Dean.

Pete knows that Patrick won’t recognise him. Hell, his own _ mom _ wouldn’t recognise him right now. So, Pete allows himself a hungry, _ public _ leer as he stares at Patrick from across the bar. Patrick’s eyes rove over the tables, his brows pinched into a frown, his hands self-conscious fists thrust down into the pockets of his jeans. This pulls the denim taut and emphasises the gentle bulge of his cock, the shape of his hips. Pete makes an embarrassing sound in the back of his throat but turns it quickly into a cough.

The cough attracts Patrick’s attention.

Patrick moves in slow motion, his eyes swinging toward Pete, then his head, then his whole body in an exaggerated double take. Patrick splutters; his eyes widen. His mouth moves without making a sound. Pete can’t read lips but it’s not hard to make out _ What in the ever-loving fuck? _ Pete grins and waggles his fingers in a dorky little wave. It draws attention to his fingerless leather gloves.

Patrick walks over the carpet with an expression on his face like he doesn’t want any of his features to touch, in case the wild look in his eyes is contagious and spreads to the carefully schooled neutral line of his mouth. He moves slowly, his boots thumping against the floor. He stops three feet away from Pete and he folds his arms and he stares, thoroughly astonished.

“Pete,” Patrick says, his voice calm.

Pete blinks up at him. “Yes, Patrick?”

“Pete,” Patrick says again. He raises an eyebrow and makes a helpless gesture that encompasses Pete as a whole. “Pete. What the fuck is… _ this?” _

Pete grins. He is so proud of his outfit. “This old thing? I wear this all the time. D’you like it?”

“No, you don’t,” Patrick says. “You’ve never worn this. I’d definitely remember.”

Pete parries. “Uh, do _ so. _”

This was so worth it, for nothing more than the way Patrick’s mouth twitches at the corners. Pete’s not lying, either. He does own the outfit. He’s not sure why he bought it – maybe it was a dare or a joke or something someone he used to hang out with thought it was funny at the time. But he owns it and he found it stuffed down into the bottom of his bag and it made sense the second he saw it because Pete _ knew. _He knew Patrick would get a kick out of it. He knew it would make Patrick smile.

“Fucking hell, you _ own _ this? You own plus fours?” Patrick asks, the other eyebrow sliding up to join the first.

Pete looks innocent. “Why else would I have it with me?”

“That’s a question for the ages. Why _ do _ you have it with you? And brogues? You’re wearing brogues. No one wears brogues.”

“You got me,” Pete says, holding up his hands, palms out. “I had to send Andy out for those. He was, like, super thrilled about it.”

Patrick rests his hand on Pete’s cheek. It’s warm, his skin soft against Pete’s stubble. “Is that a – Are you wearing a _ deerstalker? _ Oh my God. Oh my _ God. _ You look like Holden Caulfield’s dickhead cousin. How did you have an outfit like this _ to hand?” _

Pete pouts, but it’s all theatre. “A gentleman is always prepared,” he says in a terrible British accent, sliding the steampunk sunglasses down his nose. “Are you gonna look me in the eyes and tell me this isn’t normal for England?”

“Nothing you do is normal, you’re not from this fucking planet,” Patrick informs him crisply. Then he drops down into the chair opposite Pete’s and helps himself to the remnants of Pete’s demolished croissant. “Christ on a bike. Do we start the tour at the Sherlock Holmes museum and really make an impact, or should we gather a crowd and work our way up?”

_ Babe, _ Pete almost says, but stops himself. He bites his lip and swallows it down and takes a deep breath and looks around and reminds himself that no one is above suspicion. The business type reading the newspaper two tables away? He could be a pap in disguise. The waiter by the wall? Could sell any fabricated detail to the press. So Pete doesn’t say _ babe, _ even though he wants to. He drums his fingertips against the linen tablecloth. He looks at Patrick with a smile.

“That’s up to you,” he says. “Let’s head out.”

***

They start atBuckingham Palace and then move across the dazzling parts of the city: Oxford Street, Regent Street, Marble Arch. They walk through Hyde Park and eat at a cafe that looks out over the lake. No one bothers them beyond a few curious glances. They meet the car at the gates and meander past Buckingham Palace, St James’s Palace and Westminster Abbey. Patrick talks endlessly, his love for his city so absolute and enduring that Pete feels it too. He’s never thought much about London in the past but the way Patrick’s eyes light up when he points out a landmark, a restaurant he went to once, the place he saw Santa as a kid, it makes Pete want to spend more time here. 

Maybe he just wants to spend more time with Patrick. 

They end up in Leicester Square, which is Patrick’s idea. Pete’s been here before for premieres. It looks different without the barriers and security staff, without the red carpet and the pop of flashbulbs blinding him. It’s bigger. Greyer. Pete recognises the Odeon movie theatre, though. It’s the strangest mix of his world and Patrick’s. For the first time, they find a place where they both fit.

“I’ve never noticed the fountain,” Pete says.

Patrick looks surprised. “Never? It’s big enough.”

“It’s different with cameras,” Pete shrugs. “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just, once a couple of flashbulbs have gone off it’s kind of hard to see anything at all. The noise, too. It’s hard to — I can’t think, when it starts, you know? I sometimes wonder if I have some kind of sensory processing _ thing. _ I… Stop trying. Pick a random point to focus on and keep smiling. It helps.”

They’re sitting at the edge of the fountain. So far, no one has paid them any attention. London is a vibrant mashup of so many different cultures and styles that a weird little dude wearing plus fours and brogues really does blend right in. Patrick looks down at his hand, and Pete’s hand, both curled around the stone lip.

“It sounds stressful,” Patrick says. “I can’t imagine living like that.”

Pete’s smile doesn’t quite touch his eyes. “Get used to it, man. That’s all you can do.”

“Don’t have to,” Patrick shrugs. “Daytime medical dramas don’t get the Leicester Square treatment.”

And Pete is so hopelessly charmed by this idiot that he laughs out loud and scares a nearby pigeon.

“You’re kidding, right?” he asks, and Patrick raises his shoulder in a half shrug and goes back to drumming his heels against the stonework. “I mean, you know what’s coming, don’t you? They’re talking about the _ Oscars, _ Patrick. The fucking _ Oscars. _ For you. Best Actor. _ For you. _ Do you honestly think you’re going back to shitty daytime dramas after _ this? _We’re changing the goddamn world, Stumpalicious.”

Patrick blusters in a Patricky way. He makes soft harrumphing sounds and scratches the back of his neck. He stares at this shoes and blushes and is so British and _ charming _in his self-effacing bullshit. Pete wants to laugh again. “Big hype,” he says. “Big letdown.”

Pete does laugh. “God, you’re so fucking — You have no idea how amazing you are, do you? You won’t be in London this time next year. You’re gonna have studios crawling up _ your ass _ to sign you up for, like, consecutive picture deals. Writers are gonna say they’ll only release their scripts to the studio that has _ you. _ You’re, like, England’s best kept secret. I’ll be rollin’ into parties all, ‘Yeah, man, I knew him before he was famous,’ and they’re going to turn me away.”

“Well,” Patrick mutters, blushing beautifully. “I don’t like to count chickens before they’ve hatched.”

“Cluck cluck, asshole,” Pete says affectionately, and brings their shoulders together. “Come on,” he continues. “This is tourist bullshit. Show me something different. No Big Ben, no Buckingham Palace—”

“You don’t have to emphasise the _ ham _ part. Just Buckingham, you sort of… roll it together.”

“Whatever. Show me _ real _ London. Show me where you grew up. Give me Patrick Stump: The Tour.”

Patrick looks at him for a long time, his head tipped to one side, his mouth curled into a smile. It’s the same look Patrick gives him when they’re in bed together. Not when they’re fucking, but afterward, when they’re warm and lax and so close that Pete can count the colours in Patrick’s eyes. Pete stares back at him and wants, wants _ so much, _ to kiss his soft and lovely mouth. Would it be such a terrible thing — to take Patrick’s hand in Leicester Square and kiss him, where anyone could see? 

“Alright,” Patrick says eventually. “Okay. Come on. I’ll show you something fun.”

***

Pete isn’t sure what to expect when they climb back into the town car and Patrick gives the driver an address. He tries asking but Patrick ignores him, then avoids his questions, then stares out of the window and whistles Rule Britannia until Pete gives in and stops trying. Pete is terrible at keeping secrets or withholding surprises. He wants to share the magic of it right away, even if that ruins it. He holds so much inside of himself that anything new is too much. It spills over, falls out of him, bubbles up until Pete is shouting his surprise from the rooftops just to stop it taking him over completely. Patrick isn’t like that. Patrick is infuriating.

They head north through the city, along streets flanked with huge white buildings that look like wedding cakes. Former residences converted into office blocks and embassies and state buildings. Pete sees more international flags on one tree-lined street than he’s seen anywhere else since high school geography. Patrick points out landmarks, but personal ones: _ I filmed a docudrama about Jack the Ripper down that street, _ and, _ I was an extra in Sherlock once – that’s where Benedict knocked me out with a bicycle pump, _ and, _ We recorded an episode of Whitechapel just along there, Rupert P-J is _ such _ a nice bloke. _

Pete grins at his brogues. He likes Patrick like this. He likes Patrick relaxed and at home and smiling and laughing. If Pete could bottle this moment, he would.

The buildings decrease in height as they move out of the leafier suburbs. Residences give way to store fronts. They pull up outside of a shop called Spin for You, and the faded sticker in the window promises N w nd Used V ny . Pete looks at Patrick. Patrick looks out of the car window.

“I spent a lot of time here when I was younger,” he says, his voice soft. “Would you like to come in?”

Patrick doesn’t wait for Pete to answer. He climbs out of the car and crosses the sidewalk and pushes open the door and disappears inside. The street is quiet. Pete feels stupid in his plus fours and brogues. A normal person would walk into that store wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Pete doesn’t know why this bothers him. But it does. “I should...” he says to the driver, nodding in the direction of the store.

“Sir,” says the driver, like he doesn’t care either way.

Pete climbs out of the car and follows Patrick’s footsteps across the sidewalk. He pushes open the door and smells the dust and damp cardboard smell of old records and takes a moment to let his eyes adjust to the sour milk light that filters through the window. Then he looks around and gasps. 

The place is a treasure trove, an ark of a building with vinyl stacked on every available surface. There are shelves that stand eight feet high with vinyl pushed in lengthways. Bowie is next to Frank Sinatra who’s next to Charles Azanvour. If there’s a method here, Pete can’t figure it out. Rickety stepladders dot along each aisle. The shelves form a weird maze through the main body of the room, a natural series of corridors that lead toward the centre of the store. Around the edges are trestle tables, each one groaning with boxes. Under the tables are more boxes, each carefully marked with a price in permanent marker. There are cardboard boxes and plastic crates and metal filing drawers pushed alongside one another. Pete can’t see the turntable, but he can hear Peter Gabriel singing somewhere in the store. It smells of dust and denim jackets and _ music. _ Pete feels it into the roots of his teeth. He blinks around the room and he has no idea where to start.

Pete also realises he’s alone.

“Patrick?” he calls softly. “Patrick, where the fuck—"

“Boo,” Patrick hisses in his ear. 

Pete fucking _ levitates. _ He shrieks and slaps at Patrick wildly. “What the fuck! Fuck you!” When he’s finished having a mild coronary, he looks around and says. “Where _ are _ we?”

“Specifically or generally?” Patrick asks, flipping idly through a box of records to his left. “Generally? We’re in Islington. I grew up just around the corner. Had my first kiss just over there, by that phone box. Behind it, so no one could see.”

“Nice,” Pete says. “You grew up in My Beautiful Laundrette.”

“See?” Patrick says encouragingly. “You really _ do _ know something about cinema. But that was filmed in Vauxhall, before it got trendy.”

Pete laughs. “Of course it was.”

The clerk nods to them from the front desk and subtly snaps a shot of Pete with her phone camera. Well, she thinks it’s subtle. He gives her a grin and offers to take a real picture with her and she looks like her world is a wonderful place right now. He calls Patrick over and they stand either side of her for the picture, Patrick’s face soft and startled and lovely. 

“Is it true?” she asks in a delighted whisper. “Are the two of you really dating?”

“Maybe,” Pete laughs with a theatrical wink. 

“No,” Patrick says shortly. 

“Sorry,” she mutters, turning red. “My boss’ll kill me if he thinks I’ve been harrassing the customers. Just — go back to shopping. I won’t say anything.”

Patrick begins to flip through a box of LPs. “This was one of my favourite places in the world when I was a kid. They’ve got a folk rock section to fucking _ die for. _Come and look.” 

Like it doesn’t matter at all, Patrick reaches out and, in a public space where anyone could see, he takes Pete’s hand. Anyone _ could _ see, but no one will, because the store is empty and the clerk is around the corner. But still. In any other world, in Amoeba Music on Sunset, or Reckless Records back home in Chicago, Pete would have eight consecutive coronaries. Even here, he panics, his guts hot and squirmy. His heartbeat speeds in his veins and Patrick’s hand is warm and smooth and dry. “Is this a problem?” Patrick asks with caution, with a look on his face like he’s waiting for Pete to sock him in the mouth. “I can stop, if you want.”

In the dark, with the smell of dust and old music, Pete keeps their fingers laced together. “Not a problem,” he says, and his voice doesn’t shake, and he’s proud of that. “Show me the thing. The thing you wanted to show me.”

They walk through the labyrinthine twist of shelves and as they walk it starts to make sense. The vinyl is organised by mood, Pete realises. It starts out angry at the mouth of the maze, Sex Pistols and Rage Against the Machine, then hopeless with the Cure and the Smiths. It becomes soft and warm the closer to the _ heart _ of the store and by the time they make it there — to the cavernous centre where the only light comes from a dusty, swinging bulb high above their heads — the shelves are lined with love songs. 

“This is amazing,” Pete says, as Patrick begins pulling things down from the shelves, creating a tower of vinyl. He does this with such excitement that Pete’s stomach flips and tightens. Patrick never looks like this; relaxed and happy and peaceful. Here in this cave of a store, he doesn’t look hunted. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Patrick is saying, pushing an LP into Pete’s arms. It’s an original pressing of Can’t Help Falling in Love. “The funny thing is, I never liked mazes at funfairs. Getting lost panicked me. Then I found this place and I realised that mazes aren’t the problem — it’s the lack of purpose. I walked through that door when I was nine years old and, for the first time, walking through a maze _ made sense. _I wasn’t lost, because I had the map. I just had to think about the songs and it all fell into place.”

Pete loves looking at Patrick like this; eyes shining and smiling like he’ll crack with it. Loving Patrick makes him want to run away. It also makes him want to burst into spontaneous song, like this is High School Musical and the citizens of London will join in with a choreographed dance routine. Loving Patrick is confusing like this. Instead of overthinking it — a thing Pete is excellent at doing — Pete leans in and presses his mouth to Patrick’s and holds his breath. 

It’s not that Pete’s expecting to be pushed away, but he still exhales, relieved, when Patrick kisses back. After all, they haven’t put a label on whatever it is they have, whatever they want to call this moment where they pass through one another before filming ends and they have to give it a name or say goodbye and mean it. Pete’s surprisingly good at fucking around and not getting hurt, but he knows that won’t be the case with Patrick. He’s pre-hurt. His heart already aches with the concept of Patrick not being there when he wakes up. He takes the sacrament of Patrick’s tongue into his mouth and kisses back fiercely and without caution, the Elvis vinyl crushed up between them. Patrick’s hand tangles in his hair: Pete wraps his own into the front of Patrick’s shirt. They melt together against the shelf of love songs and Peter Gabriel sings on in the background and Pete is the happiest, saddest, he’s ever been in his life. 

“I’ll buy you this,” Pete says, when they pull apart. 

Patrick smiles, his mouth swollen. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I know, but I want to,” Pete says, so he does, handing over his credit card and signing a final autograph for the clerk and handing Patrick the neat little paper bag as they step out onto the sidewalk. “Where to now?”

Patrick looks at the car and the stores nearby. He looks at the other people hurrying past who don’t notice Pete Wentz. He takes a long, shivery breath and then he says, “You can come back to my place. If you — If that’s something you’d like to do?”

This is a frontier they haven’t crossed. They’ve had sex in hotel rooms and trailers and Patrick’s corporated housing in Studio City where the bed doesn’t belong to either of them and the sheets were picked out by someone else. Patrick’s house — his home — his bed and his couch and his _ stuff _ in every room. It’s different in a tangible way. Pete knows this as he looks past Patrick and at the pizza place across the street. He says, “Sure. Sounds good.”

“Good?” Patrick asks.

“Good,” Pete confirms. 

The car ride to Patrick’s place is silent. They move through north-west London and skirt Regents Park, through Fitzrovia and Marylebone until they pull up outside of a neat little house on a neat little street. 

“Home sweet home,” Patrick says as they climb out of the car. His voice is shaking and Pete wants to touch him, to push him up against the railings outside of his house and kiss him. 

He follows Patrick up the steps and waits as Patrick fumbles for his keys and opens the door and then his patience gives. He crowds Patrick through the door and into the hallway and kicks the door closed with his heel. He pins Patrick up against the wall, face first, and he fits his dick to the crease of Patrick’s ass through his jeans and he growls into his ear, “I’m gonna fuck you in every room of this house.”

“Jesus,” Patrick whispers, his knees buckling as Pete slides down, shoving up his shirt so he can bite at Patrick’s hips. “Oh my fucking God.”

Pete works the buckle of Patrick’s belt and hauls down his jeans as he drops to his knees. Patrick’s ass is so pale between his shirt and his pants. “Gonna eat you out until you can’t fucking think,” Pete says, and Patrick makes a sound like he might have something smart to say, but Pete gets there first, sinking his teeth into the round of Patrick’s ass cheek. Patrick makes a high, thin noise in the back of his throat. “That’s it, babe. Moan for me.”

“Pete,” Patrick whispers, his fingers sinking into Pete’s hair. “Fuck, Pete.”

Pete pulls him open, exposes the tight pucker of his hole in the dark hallway and grins at it. He brushes his thumb over it and watches Patrick clench then relax, hears his shaky exhale. Pete is just about to fit his face between Patrick’s cheeks, to press in close with his quick-clever tongue and biting teeth when there’s a creak, a rush of cool air and a burst of impossible, blinding light and someone says, “Oh my _ God, _I’m sorry! I didn’t see anything!”

And Patrick screams, “Megan! Get the fuck out! What the fucking fuck!” and bucks his hips with such cheery disregard for Pete’s precarious position crouched down on his heels. Pete takes a sudden, unexpected asshole to the face.

And Pete falls back onto his ass and smashes his head against the wall and feels so sick and dizzy and terribly _ afraid _ that he can’t even laugh about the asshole to the face.

And, in the melee of Patrick dragging his pants back up and shouting at the intruder, and the intruder saying something about watering the house plants, and Pete’s blood humming thickly in his ears, Pete staggers back to his feet and crashes through the door and out into the street. 

And Pete runs.

And Pete is a coward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay over the holidays.


	17. Chapter 17

Patrick sits across the kitchen table from Megan. They are a portrait of awkward silence, two untouched cups of tea cooling between them. Patrick’s arse feels bruised from Pete’s teeth. He’s blushing like he’ll burst into flames at any moment. Every time he thinks he’s got it under control Megan _ moves, _ or _ breathes, _ or makes her presence known in some unidentifiable way and Patrick risks spontaneous combustion all over again.

If Patrick closes his eyes, all he can see is Megan bursting into the hallway. So, like a snake, he doesn’t blink. Patrick would like, very much, to die. 

They don’t speak. They don’t speak because they’re British and British people know that there are rules about this sort of thing. British people don’t talk about politics, friendships or feelings. They _ definitely _don’t talk about Megan finding her celebrity crush ears-deep in her brother’s arse, for example. Patrick knows this. Patrick knows that Megan knows this. Megan stares out of the kitchen window overlooking the street onto which Pete sprinted ten minutes ago, like something interesting is happening just beyond the glass. Patrick clears his throat and counts the floorboards from one side of the kitchen to the other. Then he counts them once more, for posterity.

He should drink the tea. Drinking the tea would give him something to do with his hands that isn’t gouging out his own eyes so he never has to look his sister in the face ever again. It’s very important that they never make eye contact for the rest of their lives. Patrick’s life will be much shorter if they do.

Megan takes a breath. “So—”

“Don’t,” Patrick cuts her off. _ “Please _don’t. I can’t stress enough how much I don’t want to talk about it.”

She says, “It’s just—”

“No.”

“But you were—”

“Not talking about it. I know.”

“The thing is—”

“Megan. _ No.” _

Megan takes a deep breath. Patrick looks down into his mug and wonders if there’s enough liquid in there to drown himself.

“He ran away,” Megan says sadly. “I was _ so _ looking forward to meeting him.” She looks towards the hallway like she imagines she can summon Pete by sheer force of fangirl. 

Patrick glares at his sister. “You burst in on him with his _ face _ in my _ arse. _ Of _ course _he ran away. If it wasn’t my house, I’d run away, too.” Patrick pulls a face and then buries that face in his hands. “Oh God. And now I’m talking about it.”

“It’s okay,” Megan says, patting his arm. “This is like Michael Dixon all over again, only this time mum isn’t going to go mad about the stain on the couch.”

Patrick wonders if he can feed himself, one limb at a time, into the waste disposal unit. He wonders if he can do it to Megan and, if he does, if he can pull off a plea of temporary insanity. “I don’t like you,” he tells her sourly. “Go away, there’s a love.”

“You don’t mean that,” she says, and she is wrong. Patrick means it with every fibre of his being. 

He jabs his teaspoon into his mug. “He does this _ every time, _ by the way. If you’re interested. Suffers some kind of enormous bisexual meltdown and makes for the hills like he can outrun his sexuality.”

“_ Bi _sexual?” Megan says, sounding delighted. “So there’s still hope for me.”

Patrick gives her wedding ring a significant look. “You’re married. But yes, please focus on that part of the sentence.”

Megan looks puzzled, which Patrick feels on a molecular level. “He runs off with his pants around his ankles? Bloody hell, no wonder he’s in such great shape.” Megan pauses and gives this some thought and Patrick is presented with the chance to really look around his kitchen for things he can use to lobotomise himself. “Oh, also. _ Every time? _ This has happened more than once and you’re only just telling me _ now? _Patrick Martin Stump, you are the worst at celebrity gossip. How long have you been fucking him?”

That’s it. Patrick is packing a suitcase and taking the next available flight to Australia. Spiders and snakes are terrifying, but if he burns and salts the land around his house every day, he’s sure the local fauna will leave him alone and he’ll never have to continue this conversation. 

“I crave death,” he tells his mug. The mug doesn’t look like it cares either way. 

“Patrick,” Megan begins, and she covers his hand and she sounds so tender, “you can’t – Look. You’re my little brother, and I care about you a lot, so you know I have to ask you this.”

Patrick looks up from his cup of tea. _ Bloody hell, _ he thinks, _ she’s actually going to ask if he’s treating me well. _

“This is very important.” Megan looks back at him, her eyes the same fragmented blue, green, gold as his. She looks at him with such heartfelt care. Then, she says, “Does he have a big—”

“Oh God, _ Megan! _Can I divorce a sibling? Is that a thing I can do?”

“Nope,” Megan tells him with good cheer. “Oh, come on. This is Pete _ Wentz! _ I’ve loved him since Grave, you have to tell me _ everything!” _

Patrick chooses to ignore this, and he also chooses to take a massive swig of his tea. This is a terrible decision because, with a devastating sense of timing, Pete sneaks into the kitchen like a cat burglar and stands directly behind Patrick and says, “Um. Knock knock?”

And Patrick is so surprised, he sucks the tea into his windpipe and starts to choke. This is it. The universe finally decides to pick up the gauntlet and kill him off when he requests it. Patrick imagined his death would be more glamorous. He’s saved from asphyxiation by both Megan and Pete punching him in the back until he coughs his drink over the table. This is not his sexiest moment. In fact, Patrick feels annoyed, not sexy at all. He’s annoyed with Pete, because Pete keeps doing this and now Patrick’s sister is here and he has to be polite about it instead of shouting at Pete like he deserves. He’s annoyed with himself, because he knew how this was going to pan out the second he let — nay, he fucking _ demanded — _ Pete suck him off against the front door of Patrick’s corporate housing. Patrick _ knew _ what would happen, and now it’s _ happening, _ and Patrick is _ still _so fucking annoyed. 

“Oh, found your way back did you? Nowhere else to be?” Patrick says, and he knows he sounds bitchy and he doesn’t _ want _ to sound bitchy, but he can’t help it. 

“Patrick!” Megan chides.

Pete looks miserable. “I’m sorry. I—”

“Don’t,” Patrick snaps. He takes a deep breath and gestures to Megan. “This is Megan, by the way. My sister. She’s a very big fan of yours for some ridiculous reason. She says it’s because you’re a brilliant actor, I think it’s because you keep showing your arse on camera. Megan, this is Pete. Owner of the arse.”

Megan punches Patrick in the back once more, her knuckles landing right between two of his ribs. This time, it’s not for medical purposes. It hurts. Patrick yelps.

“Nice to meet you, it’s a real pleasure,” she says, to Pete. Not Patrick. She looks like she’d enjoy throwing Patrick in front of a passing bus. “My brother is very rude.”

Pete waves at her. He _ waves _. A little wiggle of his fingers from somewhere close to his hip. Patrick dislikes him for how easily he reacts, but is so, so charmed he can’t help but smile. “Hi,” Pete says, like he meets the siblings of all of his sexual conquests in similar circumstances. Maybe he does. “Um. I, just. Hi. I’m glad you... like my ass. Patrick likes it, too.”

Megan mutters something into her cup of tea. Something that sounds like _ Not as much as you appear to like his. _ Patrick decides to let that go. Megan and Pete shuffle awkwardly toward one another. Megan holds out her hand to shake; Pete goes in for a hug. Megan shifts to return the hug; Pete brings up his hand to shake and ends up cupping her chest in one large palm. Neither of them move. They both look terrified. Patrick is so glad that Pete has this effect on someone other than him. 

“Sorry,” Pete mumbles, pulling his hand back. “About, like, what you saw in the hallway? But also, like, about your boob.”

“Oh,” Megan says, looking delighted. “Don’t worry about it.”

No one says anything else. There’s nothing to add to that, is there? Patrick stares at the table and Pete stares at the floor and Megan stares out of the window. They will be frozen here forever and, one day, archaeologists will unearth them and no one will understand how three healthy adults became fossilised in a Maida Vale kitchen. 

Then, Megan breaks and says the most comfortingly _ English _ thing Patrick has ever heard: “Well. I’ll stick the kettle on, shall I? I’m gasping for a cuppa. Patrick, do you have any biscuits? Pete, do you take milk, love? Sugar?”

Pete grins at Patrick from across the kitchen table: _ I’m sorry I ran away. _ Patrick’s mouth tips in an answering smile: _ It’s okay, we both know you’re ridiculous _. Patrick kicks out the chair beside him and Pete takes the invitation. They don’t hold hands, or kiss, or touch at all beyond the bump of Pete’s knee against Patrick’s under the table. But Patrick wouldn’t be afraid if they did. It feels like Pete wouldn’t, either.

“ — and you need to tell me absolutely _ everything _ about Gerard Butler,” Megan is saying, as she grabs mugs and tea bags. “You’ve worked with him before, haven’t you?”

Pete looks affronted. “I thought _ I _ was the Stump family pinup?”

“Not being funny or anything, but since you’re busy defiling my brother, I suppose I’ll have to extend my horizons.”

“Your brother is a willing participant,” Pete informs her. “Actually, your brother is the instigator, like, most of the time.”

“I am not!”

Megan wrinkles her nose. “Okay, that’s disgusting. From this point, I only want to hear nice things. Tell me your most outrageous Hollywood anecdote.”

Pete thinks about this, his chin cupped in his palm, his eyes on Patrick. “Let’s see, now. Okay, so this one time, I was filming with Robert — uh, Downey Jr, you know — and he says to me…”

They have… a nice time, actually. They drink tea and Pete is charming and Megan only digs out one horrible childhood photograph and Patrick starts to imagine that this is his life. That Pete will sit in his kitchen and talk to his family and they’ll become a normal couple when filming wraps. It gets later and darker and Megan starts to make noises about the drive across London. Pete kisses her on the cheek when she stands to leave, which makes her blush, so Patrick is duty-bound as a younger brother to tease her without mercy. 

When they’re alone in the hallway, Megan squeals and flaps her hands and is generally annoying. 

“Oh my God, he’s so beautiful. How do you even _ stand _ it,” she hisses at Patrick. It blows Patrick away, if he’s honest, because he _ can’t _ stand it. It’s miraculous to know that people think otherwise. 

He blinks and makes a short, helpless gesture with both hands. 

“I think I love him,” he says. This is the first time he’s said it out loud. He hasn’t even said it to Pete. “No. I don’t think. I do. I do love him. He doesn’t feel the same way, though. So, it’s all a bit fucked up, isn’t it?”

He can hear his voice shaking and he hates it. He hates anything that shows he has less than total control over his body, his reactions. This means, by extension, that he hates Pete. For a moment, anyway. Then everything melts together and he loves Pete. He loves Pete so much his throat aches with it. He realises his eyes are stinging and clamps down on the self-pity welling in his chest. Crying is not an option. This was doomed from the start, after all. 

“Silly boy,” Megan says, sounding fond. 

“Okay. Patronising. That’s nice.”

Megan touches a hand to Patrick’s cheek and says, “Do you see the way he looks at you? He’s absolutely _ mad _ about you, darling.”

Patrick opens and closes his mouth like a goldfish. “I — What?”

“You really are dense.” She rests her hand on his shoulder and squeezes once. “He’s head over heels for you. Anyone can see that.”

Patrick immediately analyses every interaction, every smile, every touch. He combs through the mental catalogue of Pete, and Pete, and Pete, and he tries, he tries _ so hard _ to see what Megan is talking about. He doesn’t. He can’t. It’s not that he doesn’t _ want _ to. It’s just. It’s Pete. And Patrick is not the kind of person someone like Pete falls in love with. 

“See you later,” he says to her on the front step. “Give Penny a kiss from me.”

He waves until her little car rounds the bend in the road and then he takes a deep breath and goes back inside. 

***

Patrick is in the middle of his bed, on his back with his legs spread. Pete lies on his belly between Patrick’s thighs, his strong thumbs digging down into the cleft of Patrick’s arse and holding him open as he licks and licks and _ licks. _ Patrick is not so much lying there and taking it as he is physically compelled to keep moving under Pete’s mouth, triggered into perpetual motion. Patrick’s fingers and toes are numb. His hips buck as Pete finds molten points of bliss with his mouth. Patrick bites a small and squirmy whine into his wrist and thinks Pete is so good at this. So unbelievably good. When he eats Patrick out, it’s like… it’s like _ art. _

“So eager,” Pete says, pulling back and smacking a kiss to Patrick’s hole. His wet fingers replace his tongue, fluttering over Patrick’s rim. Every nerve ending and receptor in Patrick’s body lights up. “So impatient. Fuck, you really love this, don’t you?”

Then, Pete dives down and slides his tongue back inside and steals the breath from Patrick’s lungs. Honestly, there’s nothing Patrick can say in his defence, anyway. He _ is _ eager. He is impatient. He _ does _love this. 

Patrick sinks a hand into Pete’s scruffy, expensive haircut and watches Pete watching him with his golden eyes playful and Patrick thinks it’s worth the awkward angle that comes with lying on his back while he gets rimmed to within an inch of his _ life. _ It’s worth the way his knee is cramping and his heel keeps slipping against the comforter and it’s worth…

Pete slides a finger in alongside his tongue and Patrick’s eyes roll back. He falls onto the mattress, limp as a ragdoll, and moans at the ceiling. 

“Fucking hell, don’t stop.”

“Dirty boy,” Pete says with a smirk.

Pete curls a fingertip against Patrick’s prostate and Patrick’s thoughts turn liquid and hot and so, so bright. Patrick’s dick lies neglected against his stomach, red and tight as a sunburn. 

“Pete,” Patrick gasps, trying to move away, trying to move closer. Pete’s hands grip Patrick’s hips with bruising force and pin him down to the mattress and this is why Patrick gets flustered every time he sees Pete’s biceps, his lats and his delts and all those thick and wonderful muscles that can hold Patrick in place. Patrick gets off on this and no one, no one at all, has ever made him feel like Pete does. Pete buries his mouth between Patrick’s cheeks once more and licks hard, brings in his teeth, and shakes his head from side to side as he nips. Patrick sees stars. 

“Fuck!” Patrick cries out and throws his head back and probably cracks it off the headboard but he can’t feel it, can’t feel anything but Pete’s mouth. “I — I need. I _ need.” _

Pete hums. Pete stretches Patrick open with two thick, blunt fingers and slides his tongue between, fucking into Patrick as steady as a heartbeat. Patrick fingers his cock without purpose, feels it pulse under his lazy, exploratory grip. His hole flutters, trying to clench down on the invasion of Pete’s tongue, held open by Pete’s fingers. Patrick shudders in a good way and, in the time between Pete’s tongue sliding in and sliding out, he comes. 

Patrick comes hard, with an embarrassing, gaspy shout of Pete’s name, with his hand twisted into the headboard and his spine arched and his cock spurting thick ropes across his belly and his chest. He comes with his thighs clamped around Pete’s ears as he hangs on for dear life and fucks every pulse out into his fist. Patrick comes and then he collapses, spent.

Pete does not stop licking him. 

The tongue slows, each stroke measured and precise. Patrick twitches on the bed. Then, he grunts and tries to wriggle away but his legs feel like half-set jelly and he doesn’t get very far. He gives Pete’s head a weak shove. Pete twists his fingers softly over Patrick’s prostate and Patrick goes temporarily blind. 

“Jesus,” Patrick whimpers, his cock jumping even as he goes soft. A thin trickle leaks from him. Almost painful. “Fuck, Pete. Stop.”

Pete worries his teeth against the stretched and sensitive rim of Patrick’s hole. “You are… _ astounding _ when you come.”

Patrick feels embarrassed, and then feels stupid about feeling embarrassed. “God. That was… Fuck. Sorry about the, uh, head-crushing thigh hold.”

“To die by your thighs is such a heavenly way to die,” Pete says with a shiny grin.

Patrick huffs. “Every time you misquote Morrissey, he says something offensive.”

“That explains a lot,” Pete says. He licks into Patrick once more and Patrick’s brain feels like warm syrup. Pete looks up over Patrick’s heaving chest and whispers, “Can I fuck you like this? Please? I’ll be so, so gentle, I’ll make it, like, _ amazing _ for you. Promise.” 

Just the sound of Pete’s voice gives Patrick goosebumps. He’s so sensitive it hurts. Stretched thin and twitchy all over. Patrick nods weakly and threads his hands into Pete’s hair as Pete kisses his thighs, his coppery pubic hair, the plump and sticky tip of Patrick’s sensitive cock. Pete smiles as he licks away with messy streaks from Patrick’s stomach and chest. He keeps his fingers deep in Patrick’s arse, barely moving. Patrick feels hot and cold from his head to the tips of his toes. He shakes like he’s fevered. It is… so much. 

“God, Pat, if you could see yourself right now… You’re something else. Is this okay?” Pete asks, so sweet that Patrick pulls him down and kisses his stupid, shining, slobbery mouth. He should probably tell Pete to brush his teeth. He can taste the musk caught in Pete’s stubble. His poor spent dick twitches hopefully. 

When they pull apart, Patrick whispers, “Go _ slow,” _ because he needs to talk technicalities before he blurts out something he can’t take back about the way Pete is smiling at him. “Really slow. Imagine the slowest you think you can go, and then go half as fast as that. If you hump me like a horny teenager, I’ll rip your fucking balls off.”

“You say the sweetest things,” Pete says with a grin. He drizzles lube into the crack of Patrick’s arse, then starts to rock his fingers in and out. Patrick burns up like a supernova. He makes another silly, breathy noise and forces himself to relax. “Fuck yeah. That’s the sound. Keep singing for me, baby.”

_ Baby. _ Patrick shivers and wraps his legs around Pete’s waist. “Just keep fingering me,” he says, and he can hear how breathy his voice sounds. Pete slips a third finger inside. He fucks Patrick with them, slick and open and slow. Patrick pulls Pete down and kisses him and whispers against his mouth. “Perfect. Fuck, that’s. Yeah. Like that.” He’s already getting used to it, already getting hard again. “You feel so fucking good.”

“So hot,” Pete whispers, sounding awed. “God, ‘m so close just watching you.” Patrick melts or becomes smoke or drifts away. He loses himself in sensation. He closes his eyes and sees glitter and gold. He twitches towards Pete, away from him. He rolls his hips and feels aware of every inch of himself, sensitive from his orgasm, overstimulated from Pete’s fingers, sore and sticky and _ good. _

When his dick is half-hard and drooling sticky pools of pre-come along the shaft, Patrick’s eyes flutter open. He looks at Pete’s gorgeous eyes and smiles. “Okay,” he slurs, his tongue thick. “I’m good. Fuck me. _ Slowly.” _

Pete fumbles in the bedside drawer for a condom and lube. He wraps and slicks his dick and drapes himself over Patrick, so slow and sexy and insouciant. They are silent as Pete braces on his knees over Patrick, as he settles into the bracket of Patrick’s hips and lines himself up so that the thick, rubbered tip of his cock pushes at Patrick’s hole. At some point, Pete cups his hand to Patrick’s jaw and strokes his cheek with a thumb with such touching tenderness that Patrick can’t breathe. 

“You ready?” he asks, and Patrick nods, then gasps, as Pete slowly fills him up inch by burning inch. Patrick makes a thin, desperate sound, his hands cupping the muscle of Pete’s arse and squeezing. He wants this, all of this. Every day, from now until he dies. There can be no oxygen to breathe without Pete. “Shh,” Pete soothes, and Patrick wonders if he’s saying this out loud or if he’s just making more of those shaky, needy sounds. Pete pulls out carefully, then pushes back in. Patrick hits a new physical high that’s sharper than being drunk, more buzzed than getting high. “C’mon, baby. I’ve got you.”

“Baby,” Patrick echoes, insensible from his recent orgasm, from his burning nervous system, from the way Pete is touching him, kissing him, murmuring to him as he fucks him judiciously into the mattress. “So, so good. Don’t stop.”

Pete doesn’t stop. He moves with startling precision, his tip brushing up, _ feathering _ over the sensitive edge of Patrick’s prostate. Like he knows he can’t hit it dead on or Patrick might just evaporate. Patrick’s cock is so hard and he is so close — again, already — hanging on by his fingernails as Pete moves inside of him. On his back and fucked irrational, Patrick feels _ powerful. _ Patrick feels _ good. _ Patrick thinks there’s no way that this can’t last because moments like this, moments like _ theirs, _ they’re immortal, aren’t they? They can’t end. 

At some point, Pete starts making choppy, breathless sounds against Patrick’s ear. His big, rough palm wraps around Patrick’s aching and sensitive dick and he strokes, tugs, strokes in time with his thrusts. “I’m gonna, gonna come,” Pete groans. “Fuck, babe. Gonna come.”

_ Me too, _ Patrick thinks, too breathless to speak, his arms stretched over his head as Pete fills him and wraps him and jerks his hips in just the right stuttered and interesting way and before Patrick can say a word, he’s coming again. This time, it lasts longer. This time it swells like low tide in his groin and spills out into a perfect, blistering moment of heat and pressure and a merry throbbing spill over Pete’s hand and Patrick’s groin. Patrick scrapes his blunt fingernails from Pete’s shoulders to his arse and holds him there. Right there. Pete’s sweaty forehead drops to roll against Patrick’s sweaty shoulder. Pete makes a sound like he’s been scraped raw. Pete comes with a shudder and his hand fisted in the sheets by Patrick’s head and they lie together in a tangle of limbs and come and cooling sweat. 

“I love you,” Pete whispers, before either of them have come down.

It’s probably a side effect of the dopamine but Patrick smiles, his eyes closed, and murmurs, “Yeah? Love you, too.”

***

Patrick wakes at three in the morning and untangles himself from Pete’s octopus grip. He pads to the bathroom for a glass of water. Patrick looks at his rumpled, sex-haired reflection in the mirror over the sink. There’s a bruise on his collarbone. He looks well-fucked and content and _ happy. _ It looks good on him. 

Admitting that he loves Pete was probably not the best idea. But Pete said it first and he sounded so vulnerable, so soft and open and _ loving _ and Patrick was… he was _ helpless. _ He couldn’t _ help _ saying it back. He can’t help that he meant it, means it, will continue to mean it. Patrick loves Pete and for now, for this moment in a small terraced house in Maida Vale, Pete loves him back. Tomorrow, or next week, or three years hence, Patrick might get hurt. Patrick might not. He doesn’t know. He looks at his reflection and he smiles and he thinks, _ He loves you right now, _ and that settles it. 

When he gets back and slips under the covers and lets Pete curl into him, soft and warm and snuffling softly against Patrick’s throat, Pete mumbles, “Mm, missed you, baby.”

“Missed you too,” Patrick says. “Go back to sleep.” 

As he’s drifting off to sleep, Patrick notices something. 

It’s the sheets. They smell like Pete. 

  
  



	18. Chapter 18

Patrick’s house is so… Patricky. 

It’s not that Pete walked into the place with any preconceived notions about how Patrick’s house might look but, once he’s there, once he’s inside? Well. It’s everywhere. The art on the walls and the vinyl on the shelves and the fussy way dog leashes hang, arranged by colour on a hook by the door. It smells like Patrick, too. The same woodsy, citrusy man-smell that gathers at Patrick’s nape. Spending time in the house is like immolation. Every time Pete breathes, he takes in Patrick. It’s like breathing in smoke. 

It’s the best night of Pete’s life.

He likes Patrick’s mid-century end tables, and his chestnut Chesterfield couch. He likes Patrick’s artwork and his framed cinema prints and the fact that he doesn’t keep a single award on display. He likes the rugs and the wallpaper and the stained glass panel right above the front door. He likes Megan, too. Pete looks around this house and sees a place for himself. He sees a space into which he can insert his own life and twine it with Patrick’s and, maybe, they can make each other happy. Which is absurd. It’s not Pete’s house or Pete’s life or Pete’s family and he has no right to go ahead and imagine himself as part of it.

Still. They have life-altering sex on Patrick’s creaky bed and that’s amazing. In the morning, they do it again, with Patrick on top and Pete sweaty and breathless and desperate. They doze. They get each other off in the shower. They kiss, and they kiss, and they _ kiss. _ They kiss unobserved in the bedroom and the hallway and against the kitchen counter. Pete could get used to this. He takes a seat at Patrick’s kitchen table and Patrick drops an absentminded kiss onto Pete’s forehead then looks through the fridge and the cabinets. 

“I wanted to make you a decent breakfast,” Patrick says, glaring into each cabinet in turn, like he can summon groceries with the power of irritation.

“It’s fine,” Pete says. He’s naked, although Patrick has pulled out a pair of sweatpants and a rugby shirt that belonged to an ex. Patrick said he couldn’t take Pete seriously if he sat around wearing the plus fours. He’ll definitely wear his brogues when he leaves the house, though.

“It’s not fine, though,” Patrick huffs, and slams the cabinet door and folds his arms and looks devastatingly lovely with his jeans unbuttoned and low on his hips. He’s not wearing his shirt, but he is wearing his glasses and it’s the sexiest thing Pete’s ever seen. “It’s not fine at all. I’m a terrible host.”

Pete looks at Patrick and smiles. “You know the hotel has, like, an awesome breakfast, right?”

“Exactly,” Patrick snaps. Then, his face crumples a little. “I can’t compete with five star luxury hotels. We should’ve stayed there and I could’ve ordered you fucking... _ starfruit _or something and looked like a helpful, useful sort of human being, and not the kind of idiot who puts peanut butter on Snack-a-Jacks.”

Pete looks at his plate. “They’re called Snack-a-Jacks?” he asks. “That’s fucking _ adorable.” _

“Not the point,” Patrick mutters.

Pete agrees. “I agree,” he tells Patrick. “I’m just making the point that, like, if breakfast was a deciding factor for me, I’d stay at the hotel. But here I am. With you. And the Snack-a-Jacks. God, I’m calling you that from now on. You’re a total Snack-a-Jack.”

Patrick glares. “Shut up.”

Pete shrugs. “Okay, Snack-a-Jack.”

“Fuck you,” Patrick says. He looks grouchy. Pete presses him up against the fridge and kisses him again and dips a hand down into the open zipper of Patrick’s jeans, his fingers brushing the coarse edge of Patrick’s pubic hair. Patrick looks less grouchy.

“Fuck me?” Pete asks, eyebrows raised. He kisses Patrick’s mouth, then his jaw, then the soft patch just beneath that makes Patrick gasp and arch his hips. Pete’s gravity-defying dick surges upright once more in a languid throb of blood and need.

“Fuck you,” Patrick confirms, his nose pressed to Pete’s pulse.

“You’re…” Pete pauses, and ducks his head and bites Patrick’s nipple and Patrick makes a gorgeous little sound all the way back in his throat. _ “Incorrigible,” _Pete finishes, and looks smugger than a particularly smug thing when Patrick glares at him without malice. It would be difficult, Pete thinks, for Patrick to look convincingly pissed off with his dick poking stiff and pink and urgent from the zipper of his jeans.

“Fuck you,” Patrick says again, and digs his thumbs into Pete’s hips.

“Mouthy,” Pete tells him, grinning.

“No, you don’t understand, I _ want _to fuck you.” Patrick spins Pete around and pins him up against the counter. It’s good that yesterday’s interruption hasn’t traumatised Patrick to the point he won’t consider christening every room in the house.

“Oh,” Pete says, and spreads his legs as Patrick kisses Pete’s neck, his shoulder, down through the valley of spine and then back up again. _ “Oh.” _

“I love you,” Patrick says. He says it simply, his mouth close to Pete’s ear and his breath warm against Pete’s skin. He spreads his hands over the small of Pete’s back and brings his dick between Pete’s thighs. 

Pete takes a deep breath and feels his hole flutter. “You can fuck me,” he says, to the kitchen tiles between his toes. “I’m into it.”

“I don’t keep lube in my kitchen,” Patrick says, very seriously. “Do you keep lube in _ your _ kitchen? No one does that. What kind of savage do you think I am?”

“That’s,” Pete pauses to gasp as Patrick’s thick dick slides against his perineum, “that’s piss poor planning on your part. But I can take it. Without lube.”

Patrick’s teeth feel slick and hard against Pete’s shoulder as he smiles into Pete’s skin. “Oh, my lovely boy,” he whispers. “My lovely, endlessly stupid, always rushing boy.” Pete shivers. “You’re worth so much more than that. Now, put your legs together, there’s a love.”

Pete brings his legs together, snugs Patrick’s stiff dick warm and safe between his thighs and grips into the counter as Patrick ruts against him and kisses his neck and whispers lovely, breathless things into his ear. Pete looks down and watches Patrick’s swollen red cock slide back and forth under his own. He strokes himself in time but it’s without direction, without purpose, until Patrick comes with a shout and a wet slick between Pete’s legs and he collapses, breathing hard, onto Pete’s shoulder.

Patrick murmurs, “You are the most wonderful, the most _ astonishing _ man I’ve ever met. I love you so much.”

There’s something in the way Patrick says it that sounds like a goodbye. An imperceptible fragility, as delicate as walking on ice and waiting to crash through. It punches Pete in the gut. Pete turns, dripping come onto the tiles, and takes both of Patrick’s hands and pulls them to rest over his heart. Patrick leans up against him, hot and solid and grateful. This close, his eyes are very deep and very blue.

“I love you,” Pete says, and Patrick blinks at him, uncertain, his glasses askew on his nose. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Patrick gestures helplessly to Pete’s erection. “You didn’t,” he starts. “I should,” he finishes. He gets a hand around Pete’s cock and closes the other into the sweaty hair at Pete’s nape and holds him close, foreheads pressed together, as he starts to stroke. 

“Fuck, just like that,” Pete whispers, and they stand together in the morning light and Patrick strokes him slow and lusty and exactly how Pete likes it. He whispers _ mine, mine, mine _ into Pete’s mouth and Pete surges warm with how possessive it sounds. Patrick bites Pete’s mouth and then bites his own, sinks his teeth into his lovely lip and Pete can’t help it, he slides his fingers into Patrick’s mouth, presses down onto his tongue and he loves him, he loves him so much it aches.

Patrick breathes through his nose and closes his eyes. He sucks Pete’s fingers as he works Pete’s cock. Pete comes on Patrick’s stomach, his mouth rosy with quickening breath. Pete will make it work. Pete has no choice because he can’t leave Patrick now. It’s like asking him to stop breathing, his heart to stop beating. They’re fated, the two of them. They’re inevitable.

“We should get to the hotel,” Patrick says. 

Pete, who would happily stay in Patrick’s house for the rest of his life, surviving on peanut butter and water from the faucet, pouts, and says, “What’s the hurry?”

“It’s just…” and here, Patrick stares off into the middle distance, “it’s just not a good idea. Hanging around here. If you don’t want... If you don’t want everyone to find out. It’s, um. It’s probably for the best if we leave separately. There’s a back gate,” he points towards the far end of his house, “so, you can have the car meet you there.”

Pete must look bereft. At the very least, he feels his face calcify into a smile he knows doesn’t reach his eyes. 

Patrick rushes on. “I’m just saying! I’m doing this the way _ you _ wanted to. I’m — protecting you.” He spreads his hands and looks so lost and small. “I’m trying to make this work for as long as I can.”

He says it like they have an expiration date.

“I get it,” Pete says brightly, feeling strangely forlorn. “No, it’s fine. You’re right. You’re totally right. I’ll call for a car.”

The annoying thing is, that it makes sense. It makes sense. Really, it does. Leaving the house together is a risk to — and here Pete has to pause, has to remind himself, because every day he spends around Patrick is a day he spends denying his reality — but it’s a risk to _ Pete. _ To Pete’s career. Being caught in the middle of a showmance might devalue the critical acclaim of the project. It’s worse than that, though. Being _ outed _ might turn everyone against Pete. 

Pete not only risks ruining this opportunity to break himself out of rom-com purgatory. He risks losing the rom-coms. On the other hand, he has to ask himself if he even cares about the rom-coms. His life is so ridiculous he wants to cry.

Patrick smiles and shrugs and turns and looks out of the kitchen window. The mug he’s picked up from the counter crashes the floor and shatters and there are shards scattered close to his bare feet and Pete surges forward. “Oh, shit. Don’t move! Do you have a broom? I can—”

Patrick shoves him, hard, his hands solid against Pete’s chest as he shoves him back away from the window and he stands on the shards and his feet will be cut and Pete staggers into the refrigerator and blinks slowly and looks at Patrick and Patrick is so pale, so terrified, his eyes huge. Pete’s pulse is thick in his ears, his vision blurring at the edges as he catches Patrick by the biceps and holds him steady.

“Get away from the fucking window,” Patrick snaps, wincing as the pieces of mug bite into his feet. Pete stares at Patrick and blinks. Patrick leaves streaks of blood on the tile as he moves to close the blinds. The room is dark and quiet enough that Pete can hear his quick and panicky breathing. “Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, _ fuck. _ I _ knew _ this was a bad idea. I fucking _ knew _ it, but I did it anyway, because, what? God. I’m so _ bloody stupid.” _

“Babe,” Pete says, his voice shaking. “What’s wrong? You’re freaking me out.”

Patrick takes a long breath. “It’s the press. They’re outside. Like… fucking _ all _ of them.”

Pete’s world slips into freefall. 

***

Pete doesn’t say anything for a long time. Patrick watches him carefully and waits for him to react, to speak, to throw things around the room. Nothing happens. The house is under siege by the red top press who gather in an interested knot on the path directly below the kitchen window and Pete doesn’t react. There’s a possibility he’s become catatonic. That can happen with stress, Patrick’s sure of it, he’s probably read in National Geographic or on Reddit or something. What Pete needs, is someone to snap him out of it and Patrick is the only other person in the house. Patrick approaches this task with caution: he waves a hand slowly in Pete’s line of sight. He clears his throat. When neither of those things work, Patrick takes a slow step towards Pete and feels the shards of broken crockery dig into his soles.

Finally, Pete looks up. He says, “How many?”

Which Patrick thinks is ridiculous, and so he tells Pete so: “That’s a fucking ridiculous question,” he says. Much too sharply, if he’s being fair. But he’s not feeling generous with the free press milling on the pavement outside his kitchen window. He’s also annoyed that he didn’t notice them sooner, and he has _ no idea _ why they haven’t tried knocking at the front door. “And how the hell do you expect me to know? I didn’t carry out a head count. I didn’t take a _ register. _ There’s a lot, okay, a lot. Far more journalists than have ever stood outside of my fucking house before.”

Pete blinks and takes a deep breath in through his nose. He holds it, then lets it slowly hiss between his teeth. He repeats this procedure four or five times but doesn’t look like he’s calming down. If he descends into a panic attack then Patrick is in charge and ‘in charge’ is not a position Patrick wishes to find himself in. Patrick clears his throat. 

“Bugger it all. Are you alright?” He reaches out to touch Pete’s cheek, but Pete flinches, so he stops. Patrick’s arm falls to his side. He’s… hurt. “Okay. That’s fine.”

“It’s...” Pete starts, and he gives Patrick a tight, apologetic smile. Then, Pete bolts for the sink. “Oh God, I think I’m gonna throw up.”

Pete doesn’t throw up. Although he does spend a long time leaning over the sink and dry heaving until Patrick begins to feel nauseous himself. The important thing to remember, he thinks through the low wash of panic, is that none of this is anyone’s specific fault in any way. It’s not Pete’s fault for being famous and it’s not Patrick’s fault for being gay. It’s just a few journalists. They can weather this. They’ll be stronger for it.

“It’s going to be okay,” Patrick says.

Pete laughs without mirth. “No it’s not. You don’t get it, do you? This is it. This is _ it.” _

_ Of course I don’t _ get _ it, _ Patrick thinks, but doesn’t say. No one has ever cared about Patrick’s personal life before. This is unmapped territory. No one has explained the protocol and they’re — and Patrick cannot stress this enough — outside _ Patrick’s fucking house. _It wouldn’t kill Pete to be kinder about it.

“I don’t _ get _ anything other than the fact that half the tabloid press are sitting outside my fucking _ kitchen,” _ Patrick snaps. “God. Could you give me a minute or two to get used to _ that _ before you start foretelling the apocalypse, if it’s not too much trouble?”

“We don’t have _ time _ for you to _ get used _ to this,” Pete cuts over Patrick and jabs a finger toward the window. “Welcome to Celebrity, my friend. Everything you do from now on just started to _ matter _ and it — it’s fucking _ sucks. _ It _ sucks, _ okay? It’s fucking _ awful _ and it’s _ happening _ and I don’t get to have a real fucking life. Now, we have to figure out how the fuck we’re going to explain why I’m in your house before _ they _ start scaling the walls to get a look inside. I need to talk to my agent. We don’t even — Fuck. Where the fuck is my phone?”

With that, Pete disappears down the hallway and Patrick is left, alone, with his bloody footprints and the remnants of his favourite mug scattered across the tiles. For want of anything better to do, and because he’s going mad with fear, Patrick sweeps it up, and mops up the mess, and finds a dressing for his foot. 

Next, he puts on a shirt and he finger combs his hair in the hallway mirror and then he moves around the house and, very deliberately, closes every ground floor curtain. He thinks he might be in shock, and he knows the best cure for that is hot, sweet tea but he’s scared to go back into the kitchen where the kettle is. He’s also pretty sure that the only thing that’s going to slow his pulse right now is scooped handfuls of valium that he shovels into his mouth like a backhoe, not PG Tips.

He’s just dealing with the stuck drape by the back door when someone knocks. Patrick’s heart speeds and slows and then stills entirely. Maybe this whole incident will be solved by his sudden and mysterious death. 

He stares at the door and tries not to breathe too loudly.

They knock again. Patrick jumps cartoonishly high and, his voice very thin, he calls out, “Um. Go away. You have no right to be here. It’s trespass. I’ll call the police!”

“Oh, open the door, darling, I’m not in the mood for roleplay,” someone says and — thank _ God — _Patrick knows that voice. “Quickly now, before one of them works out there’s a back door and tries to work out which one is yours. We’re fairly safe, I’m not sure many of them know how to count.”

Patrick slides back the lock and opens the door a crack and Gabe slides inside like a shadow. Lovely, professional Gabe with a hoodie pulled up over a baseball cap and a phone pressed to his ear. He tells whoever it is on the other end that he’ll call them back and he hangs up and he crosses his arms and he gives Patrick a long, appraising once over. His expression is a venn diagram of irritation and admiration and fond exasperation. There are many directions Gabe could go with this one. Patrick shrugs helplessly and prays for death. 

“I thought you said you didn’t find him attractive,” is what Gabe leads with, his teeth pressed together as he talks. “I thought you said he was talentless and vapid. _ I thought you said _you wouldn’t waste the ink on the civil partnership form.”

Patrick grimaces. “I didn’t _ marry _ him, I’m not that bloody stupid.” Gabe flicks a loaded look towards the front of the house and Patrick is forced to concede. “I mean, I’m _ quite _stupid. But not about that. I have limits, you know.”

Gabe sighs. “Tell me everything.”

“I mean, that’s quite a lot of stuff. Could you narrow it down a bit?”

“How long have you been fucking him?”

Patrick takes a sharp breath and feels a dull pain bloom just beneath his ribs. This is it, probably. The heart attack he’s been waiting for. He’s going to die and all he feels is completely, singularly _ sad. _

“I’m not just _ fucking _ him,” Patrick says. He adds, “It’s more than that,” as an afterthought.

“Right,” Gabe says agreeably, shrugging off his hoodie. “Of course. Get him downstairs, would you? His agent is waiting for a conference call.”

Patrick blinks slowly. “What?”

“A conference call.” Gabe waves his phone in Patrick’s face. “Where lots of people talk to one another at the same time. Modern technology really is a wonder.”

“I’m hardly set up with conferencing facilities,” Patrick points out. “I mean, the kitchen table only seats four.”

Gabe shoves up his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose and pulls a face that suggests he’s not paid enough to deal with fuck-ups of this magnitude. Which is fair. The truth is that he _ isn’t _ paid enough. This should be handled by one of Starship’s bigger hitters, the kind of agent who managed Patrick’s affairs when he won his BAFTA and people knew who he was. Is. It’s hard to tell the difference sometimes. 

“Just fetch him for me, please.”

Patrick nods. He crosses to the foot of the stairs on his wobbly legs and he leans against the bannister. “Hey,” he calls — quietly, though, because the stairs are close to the front door which is all that separates him from Rupert Murdoch’s agents of doom — and he almost adds, _ Are you still naked, _but stops himself, just in time. “Um, Pete? My agent is here, he says your agent wants to talk to you.”

Pete whisper-shouts back. “Does he have it?”

Patrick looks helplessly at Gabe. 

Gabe holds up his rucksack without a word. 

Patrick apparently lives in a world where two men who have never met fetch packages across Central London for one another. 

Patrick looks at the bag and says, “I — I think. Yes? Maybe?” Gabe nods encouragingly, so Patrick feels more confident in finishing. “Yes. Definitely. He has… it.” 

Pete appears at the top of the stairs. He’s dressed in a pair of Patrick’s boxers — the designer ones, obviously, not the ones from Primark — and he’s clutching his dead phone and Patrick’s charger. He plugs it in and takes the rucksack without a word. He rummages through it, pulling out his own jeans and hideous designer shirt, and his own shoes and socks. Patrick gapes at the bag, then at Pete, then at Gabe. This is _ insane. _ Patrick is _ astonished _by this. 

“I picked it up from the hotel, from the room you’ve been sharing for ten days without telling me,” Gabe says, mulishly and without any real heat behind it. When Patrick continues to look like he doesn’t get it, Gabe sighs gustily and continues. “The worst case scenario is Pete getting papped leaving your house,” he says, slowly, like Patrick isn’t very bright. “The worst _worst_ case scenario is Pete getting papped leaving your house and wearing the fucking _Sherlock Holmes_ _cosplay _he was papped wearing _yesterday. _Ergo, I brought him suitable clothing.”

“So I spent the night with a friend,” Pete grumbles, pulling on his shirt. For a moment, Patrick can see Pete’s nipples and his abs and his happy trail, but not his eyes. Patrick tries very hard not to feel offended by _‘a friend,’ _and he almost succeeds. Then Pete pops free and scowls. “Who gives a shit.”

Gabe pulls out a copy of the Daily Mail and hands it to Pete. Which is an unfair example to lead with because the Daily Mail is _ terrible. _ “Apparently, pretty much every gossip journo in the western hemisphere _ gives a shit _ about America’s heterosexual sweetheart queering it up with a cute British twink.”

Hotly, Patrick begins, “I’m not a—”

And then Pete’s phone must power on because it starts ringing shrilly and buzzing endlessly and Pete lunges for the handset like it’s going to save him from his impending introduction into the pages of Pink Press. “Oh, Butch, thank _ God.” _

Butch must tell Pete to put the phone on speaker because Pete nods, looking shellshocked, and thumbs over the appropriate key and then sets it down, face-up, onto Patrick’s coffee table. Patrick holds his breath. He’s heard of Butch Walker, everyone has, but he didn’t realise — didn’t _ think _— that he might be Pete’s agent. 

“It’s two in the fucking morning,” Butch says, sounding aggreived. “Do you have _ any idea _ how pissed my wife is right now?”

Patrick, who feels largely responsible, says, “Terribly sorry Mr Walker.”

Pete, who clearly knows that Butch has no reason to talk to Patrick, says, “What the fuck is going on?”

“You were papped,” Butch says, matter of fact. 

“With a friend,” Pete says. “Doing tourist shit in a tourist city. So what.”

“You were papped all over London _gazing into his fucking eyes_ like he's your Winona, and someone from the hotel sold their story about the two of you sharing a hotel room.”

“Oh God,” Pete whispers, staring down at the phone. “They know about the hotel room? How do they know about the fucking hotel room? No one should know about the hotel room. Patrick had Joe bring down the bags.”

Patrick feels sick. He clears his throat and stares at the pattern on the living rug miserably. He lifts one shoulder in a shrug. He can’t meet the eyes of anyone in the room because, if he does, they’re going to realise _ immediately _ that he isn’t a British twink, he’s a complete and total _ moron. _

“Um,” he says delicately. “About that… I sort of. I asked the concierge. To fetch the bags. My bags. To your room.”

Pete stares at Patrick. He looks too shocked to speak, too betrayed to breathe. The tiny gnawing pebble of guilt in Patrick’s gut explodes out like a Big Bang of horrible life choices. Butch is silent on the other end of the phone. Gabe stares at Patrick like he’s the terrible beast from a fairytale. 

“I just thought…” Patrick begins, and then pauses, because he didn’t think, did he? When he speaks again, his voice is tight, defensive. “It was — a lapse of judgement. I didn’t think anyone would go to the press, did I? How was I supposed to know—”

_ “Because everything fucking matters!” _ Butch explodes on other end of the line. “You fucking _ dumbass!” _

Patrick flinches. “I… I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t speak to my client like that,” Gabe cuts in loyally. 

“Your fucking client just outed the most eligible bachelor in Hollywood!”

“Not on purpose!”

“Oh, excellent! I’m sure that’s gonna make everything a-o-fucking-kay with the casting directors. You fucked us, Stump. You bent us over and you fucking _ fucked _ us.”

“Leave him alone,” Pete snaps. “Jesus, Butch. Just… back off.”

Patrick’s lip is trembling. “I didn’t mean…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Pete cuts Patrick off. He looks like it matters a lot, actually, but he’s trying to be brave for Patrick’s sake. He takes Patrick’s hand and squeezes softly. “Look, it’s doesn’t matter. It happened. It was going to happen eventually, right? We just have to manage it.”

Patrick nods and feels small and devastated and shellshocked. He zones out of the conversation going on around him, though he picks out words like _ managed leak _ and _ press conference _ and _ joint interview. _ This is not the way that relationships are supposed to work. Being together isn’t supposed to decimate anyone’s career. Pete has worked _ so hard _ for this, for his break from rom-com hell and, well. It’s not bloody _ fair, _ is it? It’s not _ right _ to snatch that away from him for the sake of a possibility of a long-distance short-term _ fling _ with someone as dull and suburban as Patrick Stump, British Has-Been and Never-Was.

No one understands _ not fair _ better than Patrick. But Pete doesn’t have to go through what Patrick went through. Patrick can spare him that, at least.

While Pete sits at the edge of Patrick’s sofa and chews compulsively at his thumb nail, Patrick can’t stop thinking that this is his chance to be the brave man he’s played so many times. The thing is, Patrick tells himself, he never wanted _ this. _ He’s never justified his sexuality _ in his life _ and he doesn’t want to start now. He doesn’t want to _ defend _ his position and insist that he didn’t turn Pete gay. In the middle of the coffee table, Butch Walker’s disembodied voice says something about bringing in Howard Bragman to ‘deal with it’ and Patrick thinks that’s enough.

His sexuality — Pete’s sexuality — is not an ‘it’ to be dealt with. Patrick can fix this. Patrick can fix _ all _ of this. He clears his throat and doesn’t look at Pete. 

“Actually, none of that will be happening.”

Pete looks at Patrick. “Patrick,” he says softly, in the same tone he would generally say _ babe. _ The fact that he doesn’t say _ babe, _out loud, in front of Butch and Gabe, solidifies something in Patrick’s chest. He shrugs airily.

“No,” Patrick says, and he draws on every class he ever took at university to keep his expression neutral. “No, it’s not going to work like that. There will be no press conference, no joint interview in coordinating t-shirts with pro-gay slogans on the chest. I’m not doing this.” Patrick pauses and drags both hands through his hair and wonders how it’s even possible that, thirty minutes ago, he pressed Pete up against the kitchen counter and kissed him like they were normal people, entitled to a normal life. “I’m not doing any of this, because you’re going to leave my house and fly back to Los Angeles and we are _ never _ going to talk about this ever again. We’re not a couple, Pete. We never were. We fucked around a little and now we’re going back to our normal lives.”

There’s a short, tense silence. Pete looks at Patrick and Pete is a terrible actor so Patrick gets to see the raw hurt that streaks across his face like sheet lightning. If anyone had told Patrick two months ago that he would break Pete Wentz’s heart, he would’ve laughed in their face. He didn’t imagine it could feel like this. He had no idea he had the capacity to feel _ so awful. _

Somehow, he holds it together as Butch chuckles and, sounding delighted, he says, “Well. If that’s what you think is for the best. So, we get you out of the house and then we reconvene when you’re back in LA. No comment for now, guys.”

The conversation between Pete and Gabe and a couple of execs in London and New York continues in the background. Patrick looks at his shoes, because he can’t bear to look at Pete. This is the correct decision, even if it feels like his heart is breaking. 

“Do you mean that?” Pete says quietly, when no one is paying attention to them. Because they’re just the talent, after all, disposable, interchangeable, as disposal as action figures. “Patrick, look at me. Do you fucking mean that?”

Patrick’s whole face feels numb. He stares down at the carpet and twists his hands together, digging the thumb of one into the palm of the other. This is for the best. This is absolutely for the best and that’s why it hurts so much. 

“We had a good run,” he says, smiling at Pete like it doesn’t hurt at all. 

Pete looks devastated. “Oh. Okay. Right.”

The short story is this: They get Pete out of the house and into a car waiting in the next street without any dramatic incident. Twenty minutes later, Patrick shoulders his way through the press gathered outside of his door and into an Uber charged with getting him to the airport so he can board his flight back to Los Angeles. Patrick flies alone and spends the flight hoping they might plummet into the Atlantic below.


	19. Chapter 19

When Pete was eleven, his dad caught him kissing Luca Rossi in the basement of the Wilmette community centre. It’s what his therapist calls a formative memory. Or, it’s what his therapist _ would _ call a formative memory if Pete had ever told his therapist about it. Which he hasn’t. Anyway...

It was after soccer practice, cold outside, raining maybe. Pete doesn’t remember the details, he thinks he might’ve suppressed them so efficiently that his first kiss will never be anything but an indistinct shadow with a glowing red heart. Like the tip of a cigarette, ashy all around, glowing molten at the centre and Pete’s heart beating, beating, beating. He remembers, indistinctly, enjoying the way Luca’s mouth felt against his. He remembers _ not _enjoying the way Luca pulled away and called him a slur when Pete’s dad walked into the room. He doesn’t think his dad yelled at him, but he remembers the silence in the car on the drive home. He remembers… feeling embarrassed. 

Pete decided that day that kissing boys was a choice, like anything. Kissing girls was a choice, too, and his dad looked _ proud _ when he caught Pete doing _ that, _so Pete did it all the more. Pete curled around his feelings about boys like a dragon and kept them safe and secret. 

Pete thinks about Luca a lot when he gets back to Los Angeles without Patrick. He even looks him up on Facebook and finds out Luca has a wife and three adorable kids. Luca works in insurance and got married right out of high school and Luca looks happy. Luca doesn’t look like he thinks about men in _ that _ way. It worked out for Luca. Pete doesn’t know if this makes him pleased or irrationally jealous all the way down to his marrow.

The press run with the obvious headlines. _ Questioning His Wentzuality? _ is a low point. They speculate and debate and, it turns out, there are people out there willing to analyse — in depth — every photograph of the two of them together. People who read Pete’s _ tweets _ and his _ interviews _ and his fucking _ Livejournal from 2003 _ and they draw parallells and they _ critique _ him like he’s a — a _ poem, _ instead of a person. Like they can unwrap him and solve the mystery of What Really Happened in London. Armchair psychologists who write articles with inventive titles like: Stentz — Is It the Real Deal? 

It’s awful. It’s like watching a car crash, only Pete is the driver, so, really, it’s like watching footage of a car crash he’s involved in, over and over. 

Still, Pete’s not shocked. Not really. Pete’s lived his adult life under the microscope of Perez Hilton and Gawker and dlisted. He reads a lot of theories and some of them are unkind and ugly and paint Pete as a hideous queerbaiting monster. Others are smug and filled with painful recounts of every relationship Pete’s ever destroyed. Like Pete breaking Patrick’s heart was an inevitability, even though, Pete thinks, it was the other way around, actually. 

The press reaction seems to surprise Patrick, though. No, that’s an understatement. It _ horrifies _ Patrick. Pete can tell, even without talking to him. It’s a good thing Pete doesn’t set up a google alert for Patrick’s name. It’s definitely a good thing that he doesn’t spend his nights watching Patrick jab defensively in a couple of badly thought out, reactionary spats on social media with invasive journalists. Good thing he totally doesn’t read _ that. _

The studio hosts a meeting. The movie’s backers and producers and investors attend, along with studio executives and someone from legal. Gerard says lots of things like _ Are you sure about this, _ and _ Honestly, there’s nothing in your contract to say you _ can’t _ be in a relationship. _ The woman from legal looks like she’s plotting Gerard’s elaborate murder. Pete appreciates the sympathy, but he stares, stoic, at the wall in the room where they had their first table read back when Patrick hated his guts, and shakes his head until his neck cramps. _ No, _ he says, _ there’s nothing going on, we’re just friends. _ Gerard tries to talk over him, so Pete keeps saying it, over and over until it drones in his ears and the roots of his teeth _ itch _ with it. He still hears it, even when he’s not talking and he’s not sure if it’s an echo in his head, or if Patrick is saying the same thing, again and again. Pete can’t look at Patrick. He tries, at least at first, but Patrick’s always got a smile fixed on his face that looks like it was carved there like a Halloween pumpkin. Mikey doesn’t say anything at all, just drums his long fingers against his Moleskine and looks at Pete thoughtfully. Pete finds he prefers this greatly. 

Work doesn’t dry up, though. There are still offers and Pete reads through a few scripts and nothing grabs him. He lets Butch pick out his next few projects: a screen adaptation of a popular fantasy novel, the single dad in a Bad Moms sequel. A _ dad. _ It’s happening. Okay, the kid is only ten, but... Still, neither of those projects are set to film in Los Angeles or London, so it’s not like Pete’s going to find himself confronting memories on Sunset Boulevard, or holed up in The Dorchester. 

As for _ their _ film, there’s not much left to film. Not really. Pete can count the rest of the shoot in hours, if he wants to. They wrap up the breakup scene and Pete cries the whole way through and pretends he’s just acting, that he just got _ really good _ at acting in a very short length of time, and for a really specific set of circumstances. 

“You’re doing so well,” Patrick tells him, quietly, with a sad and tiny smile as he sips a cardboard cup of tea between takes and doesn’t complain about the lemon wedge. 

“Yeah,” Pete says, staring at his shoes. 

“Your intonation is incredible, seriously. Mikey and Gerard are so impressed, I can tell. Someone in Premiere wrote about possible Broadway opportunities for you. _ Broadway.” _

Pete wants to say _ Broadway can go fuck itself, _ but doesn’t. 

“Thanks.” Single syllables, that’s the way to go. Their hands are inches apart and Patrick’s got the nicest hands; slender fingers, broader palms, like a pianist. Pete watches those hands and feels his sunburn longing scorch over every inch of his skin, inside and out. 

“Honestly, I don’t think me from two months ago would even recognise you, it’s—”

Pete cuts him off. “Can you stop? Seriously? This is — I’ve had, like, two emergency appointments with my therapist this week already. I’m trying super hard not to make it a hattrick.”

Patrick looks like Pete just punched him. He reels back, his mouth a white chalk line that streaks across his face. He takes a large step away from Pete and shoves his free hand down into his pocket and he looks thoroughly fucking _ miserable. _Which is fine by Pete. This was Patrick’s idea, after all.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m — I’m so sorry. I’ll just...” 

Patrick scurries away so quickly that he leaves behind the impression of himself in the air next to Pete, a shimmering horcrux of Patrick Stump. The smell of him lingers and Pete wants to fall to his knees. He doesn’t, though. Obviously. He schools his expression into a vague, disinterested smile and schedules a call with his therapist between takes. 

Pete should’ve said something nicer, he tells his therapist. He should’ve smiled at Patrick’s compliments and returned a couple of his own and they would have acted like friends. Instead, he let his own bitterness hang off him like a shadow and now he’s the asshole and… 

“Calm down,” his therapist says. “Remember to breathe through it. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but none of this can physically _ hurt _you. It’s like hiccups, or a muscle cramp. It’s annoying, sure, but it’s an involuntary biological anomaly. You’re not going to die. This too shall pass.”

“It feels like I might die,” Pete says honestly. “I can’t get away from him. I can’t, like, lick my wounds or whatever. I have to see him _ every day.” _

His therapist doesn’t react. They breathe slowly down the line and Pete mimics the rhythm until he’s breathing normally again. “You’ll be okay,” they say. “You’ll make it through this. Shall I pencil you in for Tuesday?”

Pete is going to fire his therapist. 

Maybe tomorrow. 

When they’re done with filming and Patrick hurries away, Pete goes back to his trailer and punches a hole in the wall and doesn’t feel any better for it. It stares back at him, a ragged wound in the particleboard. He tapes a piece of paper over it and thinks that’s a metaphor for his life: covering up, hiding the cracks. Holding everything together like a broken rib.

Pete is used to broken bones and violence and bleeding. He remembers Luca. He remembers a split and coppery lip when he tried to talk about it afterward. He remembers lying to his dad about the cut. He adapts to this kind of pain in the same way.

***

Pete ghosts his lips over Patrick’s, holds him steady with both hands cupped to his face. He tilts Patrick’s mouth up to his and takes long, grateful sips of his taste. Patrick parts his lips in grateful invitation, chases Pete’s tongue into Pete’s mouth and keeps a hand locked in the scruff of Pete’s nape. 

Kissing Patrick has always been easy. This time is the exception that proves the rule. 

“Beautiful!” Gerard calls. “Hold for photography.”

Patrick doesn’t move. He looks up at Pete without actually looking _ at _ Pete. He thumbs casually over Pete’s lip and scrapes his nails lightly over Pete’s scalp. Pete stands very still and takes in every feature: Patrick’s blue-grey eyes, his flushed and lovely mouth, the exact sweeping curve of his nose. He takes it all, like a gift wrapped in paper and ribbon, and he holds it close. 

Mikey and Gerard cluster around the control monitor with Ray, the AD, and then Mikey looks up with a grin.

“Okay, people. That’s a wrap!”

A cheer goes up from cast and crew. Patrick steps back casually and slides his hands into his pockets and looks down at the scorched west coast grass at his feet. “We did it.”

“We sure did.”

“Are you going to the wrap party tonight?”

Pete shrugs. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

“Oh. Of course. Me — Me neither. Dreadful Hollywood parties. Can’t stand them, myself.”

“Right.” Pete nods and starts walking towards his trailer. For some unfathomable reason, Patrick falls into step beside him. Pete wants to tell him to go away. Pete wants to drag him close and refuse to let him go. Pete’s life is filled with conflict. 

“I fly back home on Monday,” Patrick says. Today is Saturday. Pete’s stomach pitches.

“Oh?”

“Yes, um. It’s an early flight. I only have tomorrow, really.” Patrick looks at Pete and Pete can’t analyse the look because Pete is too busy studying the horizon. “If you wanted to… I don’t know. Do something. We could go for lunch, maybe?”

Pete ducks his head. “Maybe. I think, uh… I think I might be busy tomorrow, though. Some other time.”

Patrick winces. “Yes. Yes, of course. I just thought…”

“Well,” Pete says brightly, outside of his trailer. “This is me.”

“Oh,” Patrick says. “Oh, yes.”

They fall silent. They never were any good at small talk. “Well, I guess I’ll see you around.”

Patrick fiddles with his shirt hem. “Yes. Bound to. I mean, there’s the press rush. Premieres. Talk shows. I suppose we’ll still see rather a lot of one another. Once production is over, at any rate.”

Yes, they’ll see one another in a professional capacity and they’ll pretend to be friends. Then they won’t. The liminal space of filming will disappear and Pete will become someone Patrick used to know. Pete will be okay. Pete’s going to put his feelings away in neat boxes and he’s never going to examine them and then they’ll never hurt him. It’s acting, right? It’s just acting.

“Awesome,” Pete says. 

“You could — You don’t have to give me the silent treatment. We were friends once, we could be friends again.”

Apparently, Pete is the only one who remembers that Patrick broke up with him. Without warning and in front of their agents. Pete is so fucking tired. “Sorry.”

“I don’t want to leave with you angry at me.”

“Angry? I—” _ You broke my heart. _“I’m not angry with you.”

“Pete, please. I can’t _ bear _ thinking that you hate me—”

“I don’t hate you,” Pete says sharply. He looks back down at the floor and thinks about his breathing. “I’m not angry. I don’t hate you.” 

These things are true. Pete is _ sad, _not angry, and he could never hate Patrick. A police car speeds by in the distance, siren whirring. It could be part of a production. It’s probably not real. 

“When you kissed me, in the last scene?” Patrick makes it sound like a question, tilting up at the end, but it’s not, not really. Pete doesn’t answer. “It felt real,” Patrick finishes eventually. “It was — Your acting is incredible. I’m so sorry I ever thought otherwise.”

Pete looks up for the first time and meets Patrick’s eyes and doesn’t hide his pain. Let it flood out of him. Let it drown them both like it’s biblical. 

“I wasn’t acting.”

Patrick looks heartbroken. “Oh. Listen, I can cancel my flight. Maybe we can talk about this.”

Oh, _ God. _ Pity. Nope, nope, nope.

“Look,” Pete begins, “if you’re looking for, like, a _ reaction _ or something, I — Honestly, I’m all out. I’m going home, if that’s alright. We don’t have to draw this out.”

“Oh, yes. No. Of course. I didn’t mean to — I’m not trying to waste anymore of your time.”

“Right. Well, it’s been fun.”

“Yes, I suppose it has.” Patrick hesitates, like he’s waiting for a hug or, God forbid, a handshake. Pete doesn’t move. “Goodbye, Pete.” 

Patrick pauses before he leaves. Pete can feel his eyes on him, the intense ocean blue-grey of them. Pete doesn’t look up, just keeps fiddling with his keys until he hears Patrick’s breathing hitch and his footsteps recede quietly. 

“Fuck,” Pete whispers at his Bulls shirt. So, that’s that.

***

Like Jason Voorhees, speculation about Pete’s sexuality refuses to die.

Butch brings in Bragman and Bragman arranges an interview with a carefully selected journalist. She meets Pete at a bar in WeHo, her hair buzzed short and a ring through her nose and this aggressive fuck you attitude that reminds Pete of himself at her age. She’s nice. Plucky. Pete likes her. 

He orders a charcuterie board for them to split, and then he doesn’t eat any of it. He isn’t eating much in general. He talks, at length, about how much he loves gay people and has gay friends and goes to gay bars but he _ totally _ isn’t gay himself. He talks about gay rights and internalized heteronormativity and how hard it must be for men of his age to come out of the closet, but he reminds her that he _ isn’t _ gay. He talks about Patrick’s sexuality, feeling disloyal, and the forced sexualization of male/male friendship and he says, again, that he’s very supportive, but definitely super mega _ not gay. _ They joke about girls they both like and he tries to keep it respectful, to make sure he doesn’t come across as one of _ those _cishet men. 

When the interview is over, he drives his car up into the hills and looks out over Los Angeles and counts the airplanes flying out of LAX and he waits to cry and instead he feels… empty. Too hollow to feel anything at all. An empty vessel, his sadness echoes and amplifies in the cavity of his chest.

And that’s it, really. He’s fucked up on love, or lack of it. He is completely _ devastated _ and he can’t even fucking _ cry _ about it _ . _

When he gets back to his house, Andy is waiting on the doorstep. It’s dark and he’s wearing his crossfit gear, standing on the stoop smelling of sweaty gym socks and looking more alert and alive than Pete’s felt in weeks. Pete, who didn’t want to see another living human ever again, is ridiculously touched to see him. 

“What are you doing here?” Pete asks, trying to sound more Hollywood than he feels. He’s still wearing his sunglasses in the dark. It makes him feel ridiculous, but also safe.

“I bought way too much food,” Andy says, holding up a sweaty paper bag and looking pleased with himself. “Dumb of me, really. But when I got into the restaurant everything sounded so good. I mean, it’d be a shame to waste it, right? Kids in Africa starving to death, you know. Thought you might like to split it, stop me feeling like a bad person.”

It’s from Pete’s favourite Mexican place. It’s messy and spicy and everything is stuffed full of additives and sodium and processed sugar. The menu is so full of MSG that Andy probably came out in hives just standing by the counter.

“You _ are _a bad person,” Pete says, fiddling with his keys. “You’re the fucking worst.”

“Right,” Andy says agreeably.

“I don’t need you to baby me,” Pete says, meaning the opposite. 

“I know,” Andy nods.

“I can organise my own _ food. _ I’m not a moron.”

“Says you.” Andy nudges his hip against Pete’s and takes Pete’s key from his hand. “You’d be doing me a favour,” he says, which is annoying. If he said ‘I know you’re not eating, I’m here to make sure you don’t sad yourself into the hospital,’ then Pete could argue back. He can’t argue with _ doing Andy a favour. _

“He left me,” Pete blurts out, in a rush. There. He did it. He said it out loud and nothing happened. His heart continues to beat, or else his internal organs are already petrified and he’s running on anti-anxiety medication and hubris. It feels cathartic and punishing and _ horrible _to say it out loud, so Pete says it again, to spite himself: “Patrick left me. And I don’t know what to do about it.”

Pete bites his lip and holds his breath and waits for his rib cage to crack open and spill out the _ hurt _ he’s been carrying around in his lungs. Like he’s John Hurt in Alien and this exquisite agony is a chestburster and Pete can die soaked in blood on his driveway. Nothing happens. It’s very disappointing.

Andy looks at Pete, unblinking. He looks like he’s gearing up to say something profound so Pete waits patiently and doesn’t add anything. Andy clears his throat and shifts from one foot to the other and takes a breath. “I got that bean dip you love. And Dr Pepper. The full sugar stuff.”

And Pete — Pete makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a dry, broken sob. “Thanks,” he says. “You’re, like, the best friend ever.”

Andy unlocks the door and Pete follows him inside. 

They sit on Pete’s living room floor and eat five bean burritos in front of Netflix. The thing about Andy is, he doesn’t talk much. Pete needs that right now. Andy doesn’t say a word, even when Pete reaches for the remote and scrolls through every streaming service he has until he finds _ something _ with Patrick in it. It’s not even one of his better works. It’s not Soul Punk or Infinity on High, it’s just a stupid costume drama. Patrick is Lord Something and betrothed to Lady Whatever and their romance is very lovely and genteel and wholesome, but the _ looks _ he gives his groom. God. Patrick has homoerotic subtext down to an artform in itself. 

Pete watches Netflix and eats his Mexican food and he doesn’t sleep but he does make it through the night. He takes a long run up through the hills early the next morning, runs until his lungs burn and his thighs scream and he’s soaked every layer of clothing with sweat and it feels… better. It’s easier when there’s a physical pain to think about. So, he stretches out his burning quads and watches more awful TV and he makes it through another night. 

Then, it sort of makes sense to try to make it through the rest of the week. This turns into two weeks, then three and Patrick doesn’t call and Pete is okay with that. He’s okay. He tells his therapist and his agent and Andy and his mom, when she calls, _ I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay. _

Then, somehow, he’s stumbled through the first month. 

Then the second. Third. Fourth. 

He’s okay, he’s okay, he’s okay. 

And life is emptier without Patrick, and nothing seems as vibrant and things aren’t, exactly, the same as they were before Patrick left behind the impression of his shape in Pete’s bones and skin. But Pete survives, although he drags himself through the day like he’s wading through sucking mud. He goes out for drinks with his friends. He lets himself get spotted with girls he’s not sleeping with. He misses Patrick with a fearsome ache that only hurts when he prods it, like a rotten tooth, or the impact site of a dreadful wound. But he makes it. He doesn’t flinch when he sees Patrick’s name in the papers and he sends a good luck text when he hears on the grapevine that Patrick’s in line for a major role in the next Scorcese epic. Patrick replies. They begin a cautious back and forth. They don’t talk about _ Them. _ It’s almost nice, if a little like being sliced into every time he receives a notification that Patrick’s text him.

He’s proud of himself for making it half this far. Proud of Patrick for going even further. 

He’s woken one morning by his phone ringing on the nightstand. It’s Butch, and it’s ass o’ clock and, generally, this happens when Pete has done something foolish the night before. Which is impossible, because Pete spent the night watching TV and masturbating to some of Patrick’s older movies. Still foolish. But no one _ saw. _ The evidence is entirely circumstantial. Good luck securing a conviction.

“Hmm?” Pete says.

Butch tuts. “You’re still asleep? I thought you had that new meditation, rest cycle _ thing _ going on.”

“I’m trying,” Pete says, swinging his legs over the edge of his bed. “It’s really interesting, actually. My therapist says—”

“Sounds awesome, man. Listen, have you seen the pictures?”

Pete stares blankly at his bedroom window. “Pictures?”

“Yes, _ pictures.” _ Pete can hear something in the background, clattering, like Butch is making coffee. “They’re eating it with a goddamn _ spoon, _ Pete. Should’ve let you run with it for a while, you can’t pay for shit like this from National Enquirer.”

“What pictures?”

“It’s _ insane. _ I don’t know _ how, _ but it’s actually made him _ more _ marketable.”

Pete pulls the handset away from his ear and stares it, convinced that Butch is at least half mad. “Butch,” he says slowly. “Are you okay, man? D’you need me to, like, call someone for you? Pictures of _ what?” _

“Patrick! Jesus, keep up! Your boy toy’s all over the papers sucking face with _ his _boy toy, and apparently that’s a good thing.”

Pete blinks. “I — What? Patrick doesn’t have a _ boy toy.” _He doesn’t. He would’ve told Pete. 

“Think again,” Butch laughs. “Some musical theatre kid, West End. I dunno. Who gives a fuck, am I right? 

Pete puts his phone on speaker and fumbles for his browser and types _ Patrick Stump _ into google and yes. Yes, there are many pictures. Or, there are many copies of the _ same _ picture of Patrick kissing _ someone _ on his way out of a notorious gay bar in Soho. Patrick is wearing a leather jacket and skinny jeans, a The Who shirt and the ugliest sneakers Pete’s seen in his life. Pete doesn’t recognise the other guy, but he has nice hair and dark eyes and big, blunt hands that wrap around Patrick’s hips.

Pete’s lungs collapse like rotten fruit. The hurt inside of him is immense. Pete can feel it at the back of his throat. A great, ravening beast of anger and pain and Pete wants to unhinge his jaw like a snake and swallow it whole. 

“It’s so _ positive,” _ Butch is saying, sounding pissed off and far away. “I didn’t think it would be so... _ positive.” _

Pete stares at the pictures and his world collapses around him. He ends the call without saying goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Panda, for allowing me to shamelessly steal the poem analogy.


	20. Chapter 20

So, Patrick boards a plane to Heathrow _ knowing _ he’s fucked up his life. 

Patrick’s fucked up his life and he has absolutely no idea about how to fix it. Not that he _ can _ fix it, but he doesn’t know how he’s going to get himself back to where he was a year ago before he even heard the name Pete Wentz outside of awful Rotten Tomatoes reviews and Glamour Magazine’s annual list of the world’s sexiest men. It’s a hopeless task, recovery, like Sisyphus pushing the rock up the mountainside over and over again until it rolls back and crushes him and. And then what? Good old Sis gets up, and he does it again. So Patrick does the same. He shoves the heavy, broken love he has for Pete out in front of his chest, even though his arms ache and his legs buckle and his fucked-up heart is bone-fucking-weary and he can barely breathe most nights and he doesn’t think he can last another day, he just…

Keeps going. Nothing else for it, is there? British stiff upper lip and all that. Put a brave face on it, don’t talk about it to anyone. He’s okay, he’s okay, he’s okay. 

Which works for a while. He keeps smiling. No one seems to notice that his smile is like a bloody shovel and he’s using it to bury himself alive. But then, why would they? No one really knew him beforehand. No one waited outside his front door to snap pictures of him climbing into an Uber on his way to Waitrose to stock up on ready meals for one. No one posted pictures of him on Tumblr (#Stentz, #Look at that ass, #Where’s Pete?) or invited him onto late-night talk shows or interviewed him for Empire. 

They ask about Pete a lot. Everyone. As in: fans and journos and Graham Norton and Megan and Patrick’s mum and random people on the tube. As if Patrick has Pete tucked under his leather jacket, ready to whisk him out like a magician. And why wouldn’t they ask? Patrick is the emerging star but Pete is the centre of the galaxy, the brightest, the most beautiful sun and everyone else is just… just a _ planet, _ spinning around him. It’s _ natural _ for them to want to know about Pete. It’s _ natural _ for Patrick’s guts to ache when he hears that name. Time’s supposed to be a healer and Patrick is willing away the days and hours and endless painful minutes without him.

Pete seems to be doing okay, for what it’s worth. Not that Patrick _ looks. _ Not that Patrick _ cares. _ Pete is okay _ hypothetically_. In _ theory. _ At least, gossip sites show that Pete goes to exclusive clubs and surrounds himself with beautiful women. He runs an interview in GQ where he makes it very clear that he’s_ not _ gay, thanks very much, and the miniscule cracks threading through Patrick’s heart only split apart for an hour or so before he gets it under control with half a bottle of Kraken and a couple of out of date valium. Patrick schools himself on not reacting when he sees Pete in the gossip pages with _ EmiliaClarkeZoeKravitzNathaliaEmmanuel. _

Patrick becomes an expert in denial. He doesn’t flinch or wince or falter at all when someone brings up Pete’s name. 

When it’s dark and Patrick’s switched off the telly and it’s just him and Penny alone in his bedroom, he lies in his bed that doesn’t smell of CK Eternity and thinks about texting Pete. Just a _ little _ text. Nothing weird. Just a _ How’re you doing? _ or maybe an _ I saw you with James Corden, you can’t sing for toffee. _ They were mates once, after all. Mates text each other, don’t they? Then he holds long, vicious conversations with himself about why he definitely shouldn’t text Pete. It would only hurt, he reasons. The purpose of the text message is to open a line of communication that he hopes Pete might wander down, unaware of Patrick’s _ intentions. _ Immune to Patrick’s _ desires. _ Until it’s too late and Pete realises, against all odds, that actually he’s in love with Patrick, can’t bear to be without him, has to board the next flight from LAX to Heathrow _ immediately _and— 

That won’t happen. So, that’s why Patrick doesn’t text Pete. And Pete doesn’t text Patrick because Pete wasn’t in love, he was in the throes of a showmance and now he’s moved on with _ EmmaStoneDemiLovatoDaisyRidley. _

And Patrick is _ fine _ with that. It’s all acting. It’s _ just acting. _ Patrick can act. It’s the only thing he’s ever excelled at.

For the first few months, Patrick becomes a recluse and everyone leaves him alone. He drinks a bit too much, if he’s honest, starts to rely on sleeping pills he was prescribed four years ago. Stops answering his phone unless it’s work-related. He sinks beneath the surface and he discovers that London is the _ perfect _ place to theoretically drown, because no one really cares if he resurfaces. 

To prove him wrong, Megan starts to show up at his house with food and she opens the curtains and chases him into the shower and makes noises about therapy and Patrick is _ horrified. _ And also dismissive. But mostly horrified because he doesn’t, under any circumstances, want to talk about his _feelings _ with a stranger_. _ Then Gabe calls him in for a meeting about his options and makes a throwaway comment about therapy and the wonders of benzodiazepine. Which, okay. Two people can be wrong about the same thing. Look at Trump and Pence. Then _ Will _ calls and passes along the contact details of a _ life guide _ he sees now and again. Patrick googles the name. She’s a fucking _ therapist._ Based in Spitalfields. Patrick gives in and makes an appointment because, fuck it, it might get them off his back. 

“I’m not going to talk about my childhood, or my sexuality, or Pete,” he tells the therapist when he’s ushered into the front room of a large ground floor apartment in an airy eighteenth century weaver’s house just off Hanbury Street. “I don’t need to regress, or examine my psyche, or get in touch with my inner child, or any of that bollocks. I’m here so I can tell everyone I went to therapy and it was crap and then they can stop telling me to go to bloody therapy.”

Dr Williams — Hayley, she wants him to call her — looks at him from over the frames of her glasses. Patrick avoids the look — he won’t be tricked into therapy — and stares at the reproduction Kandinsky on the wall. Probably a reproduction. Actually, given the price for an hour of her time, it could be an original. 

“First of all, we don’t have to talk about any of those things if you don’t want to.” God, she’s American. Like Gabe and Will and — and _ Pete. _ “Second, why would you come for therapy just because your friends told you to?”

“Um,” Patrick says. “Well, I don’t really… I’m a bit of a people pleaser, I suppose…”

“Hmm,” says Hayley, writing something in a Moleskine notebook. Patrick cranes his neck to see but her handwriting is worse than Pete’s. She doesn’t say anything else. Unnerving, much?

“It’s just, I don’t like it when people are disappointed in me,” he rushes on. To fill the silence, not because he’s trying to _ impress _ her, or make her _ like _him. “I like to be liked. It’s probably because of my dad…”

Hayley looks sympathetic. “Your dad, huh? Sounds rough.”

Patrick huffs out a laugh. “Nice try, I’m not falling for it _ that _ easily.”

“No?” Hayley says. “So, how about, instead of telling me why you don’t need therapy, you tell me why your friends _ think _ you need therapy, and then you can tell me why they’re wrong.”

Patrick narrows his eyes. “It can’t be that easy.”

“It’s _totally _ that easy.”

“Hmm,” Patrick says. “Look, it’s really not that interesting. Wasn’t even a break up, really, because we weren’t together in the first place…”

And, just like that, Patrick is _ tricked _ into therapy. An hour later, he’s poured his heart out about everything he said he wouldn’t discuss. His pocket is crammed with damp tissues he’s too polite to throw in the bin. He feels… better? Well, less awful, at least. So, he makes an appointment for the same time next week and ignores Will being smugger than a smug thing about it. Every week he tells himself this is his last appointment. Every week, he thinks once more can’t hurt and books again. Over a month or two, he starts to look forward to going. Hayley teaches him how to distract himself from Pete. He _ improves. _

Then there are more distractions from Gabe because Patrick's name’s out there now, talent agents and casting directors — important ones, ones based in LA and New York — they _ know who he is. _ They ask him to read! For real parts! The offers start rolling in, most of them based in Hollywood. Megan — sister, lawyer, financier — tells him a little apartment in LA might be a decent investment. Nothing fancy. Just somewhere to dump his suitcases while he’s filming. Silver Lake looks nice. Or Echo Park. A two-bed, maybe. Close but not too close. Traffic is awful, after all. Patrick can’t bring himself to look at real estate websites because everything about Los Angeles reminds him of Pete. The offers keep coming. They want him for a regular spot in an Emmy-winning drama series, they offer roles in rom-coms and action movies and (and this is the sweetest cherry piled right on top of the whipped cream of Patrick’s previously sunk career) _ Scorsese _ wants to meet him about an Oscar Wilde biopic. _ Oscar Wilde. _ Directed by fucking _ Scorsese. _

Patrick has seventeen consecutive crises. He’s not sure he’s ready for Scorsese. 

“You need a better agent,” Gabe tells him over lunch.

Gabe takes Patrick out for lunch on Starship’s credit card quite a lot these days. Nice restaurants, too. The kind with waiting lists and reserved tables and charming little back rooms for the people who _ don’t _ want attention. They go to The Ivy and The Ritz and 34 Mayfair and Patrick feels small and scruffy and out of place in every single one of them, even when he wears a tie. This time, they’re eating in Nobu and Kate Winslet is at the next table, eating miso like a normal person. Patrick is trying very hard not to stare because Patrick is not a normal person, nor is he from this fucking _ planet, _ apparently. _ Kate Winslet! _

“I do not,” Patrick retorts, when he stops looking at Kate from the corner of his eye. She eats _ miso! _ Like _ him! _ “You’ve put up with me for this long, you’re stuck with me now.”

Gabe frowns, dips his tempura in sauce, doesn’t look at Patrick. _ “Martin Scorsese. _ Sweetheart, I’m so far out of my depth the fucking _ Titanic _thinks I’ve gone a bit far.”

Patrick mulls this over as he takes another mouthful of miso and chases it with a swallow of water. Technically, he needs a better agent. One of the bigger management firms. Someone who can handle Hollywood demands and make sure contracting obligations favour Patrick at least a little bit. But then, he likes Gabe. Used to him, isn’t he? Better the devil you know and all that. Gabe’s stuck with him through the good times and the bad. Not a bad quality in an agent, loyalty. He’s already lost the most important thing in the world to him because of his career. He won’t lose Gabe, too. Patrick tips his head to the side and squares his shoulders.

“You’re my agent,” he says firmly. 

“Patrick,” Gabe says, like he’s telling Patrick off, but looking fond and pleased. 

Patrick gestures with his spoon. “We can negotiate your percentage, but you’re the best I know, so, you know, feel free to take advantage of me. I won’t put up much of a fight.”

“Fine,” Gabe says, like he’s doing Patrick the most tremendous favour. “But I’m hiring you an assistant. Non-negotiable, for me more than you. I can’t do _ all _ the heavy-lifting, can I?”

An assistant. Someone to chivy him out of bed on the bad days. Shove him in the shower or turn a hose on him if he doesn't comply. A _ babysitter, _ because Patrick is _ sad _ and sad people don’t make good choices.

Patrick frowns. “I don’t want—”

_ “Non_-negotiable, darling. Do you know what that means?”

“But—”

“Non. Negotiable. Don’t you trust me?”

Before Patrick can answer — or argue, really, he just wants to argue — his phone lights up on the table between them. An American number, Patrick doesn’t recognise it, but when he looks down, he sees the message and his pulse begins to tapdance. 

_ heard about scorsese. i won’t say good luck, we both know you’re too bright to be a star, you’re gonna shine like mars dude. P _

Oh, bloody hell. Oh, bloody _ fucking _ hell. Patrick wasn’t expecting that. Isn’t prepared for it in the slightest. He needs to call Hayley. No, first he needs to have a panic attack and _ then _ he needs to call Hayley and _ then _ he needs to crawl into his bed and refuse to emerge until he knows his heart is actually beating and hasn’t calcified in his chest. Pete isn’t _ allowed _ to text him out of the blue like this, to wish him luck and call him _ dude _ , like they were never anything more than co-stars. Pete has no permission to break Patrick’s heart just by _ proving he exists _ outside of glossy magazines and Patrick’s painful, prickly memories. Patrick is breathing too hard, his heart rabbiting. He tries to stay calm. 

“Patrick? Gabe says, concerned. “You okay?”

Patrick frowns _ harder. _ “Trust you?” he says, his voice trembling even though he tries to keep it light. “Not as far as I can throw you. But fine. I’ll have an assistant.”

An assistant can screen his texts. Not a bad idea, that.

“Excellent,” Gabe says. “Now. Eat your miso and stop staring at Kate, you’re starting to look certifiable.”

Later, Patrick examines the text again. When he’s alone in his house and the phone has stopped feeling hot or explosive, like an IED in his pocket, ticking down to his certain doom. He reads over it and runs his thumb lightly over the letters and imagines Pete seeing them form on a screen half a world away. It links them, doesn’t it? Pete’s heard the rumours about the project and he thought of Patrick and he wanted to make a connection and that’s… important. It’s _ important, _ isn’t it? Patrick ought to reply. That’s what a _ friend _ would do. 

It takes longer than Patrick would ever admit for him to craft a response. He spends hours writing and deleting and rewriting and pausing and promising himself he’s going to hit send because it doesn’t _ actually _ matter. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Pete called him _ dude. _

_ Thanks, _ he settles on, eventually, because _ thanks _ is the sort of thing a non-lunatic would say in this situation, _ good to hear from you mate. I’ll let you know how it goes. Do you change your phone number every six months? _ He hits send before he can think about it. There. Like tearing off a plaster. 

Pete replies before Patrick’s switched his screen off: _ got to. get crazy stalkers sometimes. you could sell this number for more than scorsese will pay you. retire to a tropical island. live your best life. _

_ Oh? Not sure you’re worth enough. Only interested if I can stretch to one with a lair inside a skull-shaped volcano. Always fancied being a Bond villain. _

_ you’ve got the accent ;) _

Patrick smiles and feels heartbroken and switches his phone off and sets it to one side. That’s enough for one night. Baby steps. It probably doesn’t mean anything, anyway. Just one _ dude _ congratulating another. 

Only, maybe it does. Mean something. Because Pete texts again three days later, and Patrick replies. It becomes a conversation. Patrick doesn’t tell Hayley, but only because he’s scared she’ll tell him to stop.

His new assistant starts work a week later. Her name is Vicky-T and she’s ruthless and efficient and Patrick is a _ tiny bit _ scared of her. He texts Joe: _ You didn’t shout at me this much. Is she SUPPOSED to shout at me this much? I feel like she shouts too much. _

Joe texts back: _ What can I say? I’m one in a million. _Patrick doesn’t reply — he doesn’t have time. Vicky-T is shouting at him. 

To “celebrate” his “ongoing journey to positive mental health” Patrick is forced to a dinner party at Gabe and Will’s house. Their house is delicious; a townhouse in Notting Hill, near the Portobello Road. It has wide, white stone steps leading to a shining black front door and inside is painted with Farrow and Ball and always smells of Jo Malone candles and pot smoke. Like a sexy backpackers retreat, but with expensive sofas and pristine white carpets. They have a gorgeous framed Cadden on the living room wall that Patrick is going to steal one day. 

Anyway, Patrick shows up, even wears a shirt and tie under his leather jacket _ and _ his nicest shoes, a pair of dusky grey suede boots that make him feel all rockstarish. Will greets him with a double air kiss and takes the bottle of Châteauneuf du Pape that Patrick liberated from a cardboard box at the back of his pantry. Patrick is ushered into the living room and to the fireplace and deposited next to a handsome guy with nice hair and dark eyes. 

“Darling, this is one of my underlings, works with me at the Apollo. Do me the biggest favour and keep him out of trouble while I finish with dinner?”

“Oh,” Handsome drawls, looking Patrick up and down. “Hi.”

Patrick looks at Will, suspecting some kind of set up. “Be _ nice," _ Will mouths, over Handsome’s shoulder. Patrick scowls; he’s always nice. Will makes an aggressive hand gesture, rolls his eyes and gnashes his teeth and then disappears into the kitchen. Patrick considers himself warned. 

“Hi,” he says, holding out his hand. “Nice to meet you. How do you know Will, exactly?”

They make small talk. Exchange names, and Patrick promptly forgets because Gabe gives him far too much wine and Patrick’s memory is shite enough at the best of times but even worse when he’s pissed. Brandon Something. Brendan? Nice enough chap, anyway, very talkative which makes up for Patrick’s awkward silence. He’s in musical theatre. Playing Fiyero Tigelaar in Wicked at the Apollo Victoria. Patrick doesn’t roll his eyes or point out that musicals are basically the lowest form of acting. He’s being _ nice. _ Brandon/Brendan asks about Patrick’s career and makes impressed noises at all the right moments and holds eye contact and then he stares at Patrick’s mouth and God — _ God, _ it’s a trap, he’s bloody _ gay, _isn’t he? 

Patrick edges back half a step, trips over the fireplace and gulps down the rest of the red in his glass. He wishes he smoked so he’d have an excuse to leave the room for five minutes. An attractive single man is staring at his mouth. His head is spinning. Brandon leaves the room to use the bathroom and Patrick pounces on Will.

“You _ arsehole,” _ Patrick shrieks, staggering a little because he’s very, very drunk. He leans up against Will and jabs a finger into his chest. “You. You, you bloody great… _ bitch! _You set me up and you didn’t warn me and ’m not — not bloody ready for this, William. I’ve got — got a note from m’therapist. I don’t have to. Oh, bugger. What — What’s the word for it again?”

“Date other people?” Will offers helpfully, sloshing more wine into Patrick’s glass. “Try this. Petite Sirah. Fantastic. Anyway, just because he’s gay doesn’t mean I was trying to set you up. He’s a friend, that’s all. I’m in_ theatre, _darling. I don’t meet many straight men in the line of duty.”

“You look cute together, though,” Gabe declares. “Fuckable. Would it kill you to suck his dick?”

Patrick will sack Gabe. Maybe tomorrow. “Shut up,” he says. “You can shut up.”

“He’s just a friend of mine,” Will soothes. “I’m not saying you have to ride him like a rodeo clown. But, you know, a little heavy petting never hurt anyone, if you know what I mean…”

Patrick narrows his eyes. He doesn’t believe Will at all. He also doesn’t want to think about kissing someone who isn’t Pete. His mouth won’t fit with anyone else’s, he’s sharp with broken edges now. “If I find out you told him this was a date, I’m taking the Cadden.”

“Sweetheart, please.” Will pats Patrick on the top of his head, which. Patronising much? “Brendon’s a very charming, very handsome man. You should just enjoy the view and the company and see—”

“Brendon!” Patrick exclaims, sloshing wine over the back of his hand and the hardwood floor. “He’s called bloody _ Brendon. _ Shit the bed, I’ve been calling him Brandon. And Brendan. Probably thinks I’m an idiot now. Not that he’s wrong. Who calls a child _ Brendon, _ anyway? Oh _ bugger, _I didn’t mean...”

Predictably, Brendon walks into the room while Patrick’s ranting and Patrick spends an unfeasible length of time apologising while Brendon — Bren_don, _ bloody Bren_don _ — reassures him that it’s fine, it’s absolutely fine, it’s nothing to worry about, honestly. Will and Gabe find this funny, because Will and Gabe are _ arseholes, _and Patrick wants to die from embarrassment until he gets unsteadily to his feet and wanders into the hallway to find his phone and order an Uber. 

“Maida Vale?” Brendon says. 

Patrick screams quietly, because he had no idea Brendon followed him into the hallway and now there he is, all tall and dark and lovely and _ not Pete. _ God. What is _ wrong _ with Patrick? It’s been four months. Patrick stares at Brendon’s mouth and nods. “Er, yeah. Maida — Maida Vale. Why?”

“Hampstead,” Brendon says, nonsensically, pointing to his chest. It’s a nice chest, Patrick thinks. Brendon’s wearing a white v-neck and it shows off the muscles in his shoulders. The lowest point of the neck reveals a curl or two of dark chest hair that Patrick can imagine running his nose through. 

Patrick drags his eyes up. Focus. He squints at Brendon until he remembers the geography of London and that Hampstead is a few miles north of Maida Vale and Brendon is probably suggesting they share the Uber. “Oh! Er, I… I’m not sure. It’s just. You mean?”

Will and Gabe stand behind Brendon, just around the corner of the living room wall, convinced they’re invisible but Patrick can _ see _them, and even if he couldn’t, they’re giggling like a pair of schoolboys. He needs better friends. 

“I mean we can share the Uber,” Brendon says, smiling. “You can hop out on the way.” 

“Right,” Patrick says, nodding like a marionette. “Er…”

It hits like a wall, like running full pelt into patio doors and feeling the sting and the bruising force of it and collapsing breathless onto the floor and thinking _Christ, well, don’t you look bloody stupid. _ Because that’s what it is. It’s bloody _s__tupid _ that Patrick feels disloyal for thinking about getting into a cab with Brendon. Handsome Brendon. _ Interested _ Brendon. Openly homosexual Brendon who doesn’t need to hide in the shadows and pretend they’re not a thing when — if, _i__f, _ God, it’s just a bloody taxi ride, Patrick, _calm down. If _it becomes anything more. 

After all, isn’t Pete moving on? Rolling out of nightclubs with _ JenniferAnistonSelenaGomezAmberHeard? _ If Pete gets to be happy, why can’t Patrick?

(Fuck, Pete never looks happy. Not that Patrick has _ analysed _ him. Not that he’s an _ expert _ in Pete’s emotional presentation but his mouth is always so tight, painful, carved there like a Glasgow smile. Patrick _ knows _ Pete’s smile, keeps it tucked away like a series of ageing polaroids that he can examine and treasure. Sweet, like apple slices on his tongue.)

(Sidenote: Pete is none of Patrick’s business.)

Patrick shakes his head, smiles, and says, “Makes sense. Much more environmentally friendly, after all.”

“Absolutely,” Brendon drawls. “Got to do our bit. Just give them your address, eh. I’ll give them mine once we’re on the way.”

To keep things brief: Brendon doesn’t give the driver his address and Patrick invites him into his little house for coffee. Coffee leads to kissing leads to awkward blowjob wedged against the guest bedroom door because Patrick’s still _ slightly _ too pissed to find his own room. It’s not even good head. Brendon seems. Brendon seems more concerned with how he _ looks _ sucking dick, than how it feels. Lots of tilted-up bedroom eyes and teeth digging in where they shouldn’t. Patrick wakes up the next morning with Brendon in his bed and he feels sort of… _ gritty _with guilt and ignores the next couple of texts Pete sends because, honestly, there’s no point in pining over someone he can never have. 

Brendon leaves without making a fuss. Which is great because, Lord knows, Patrick needs the headspace. Patrick is packed off to Bulgaria to shoot a Sky One action series, and that would probably be that but Brendon texts him. Patrick is in his hotel room watching one of Pete’s older movies — he’s a rookie private caught up in the Normandy landings, Patrick didn’t think he had a thing for uniforms but, it turns out, he has a _ massive _ thing for uniforms. Patrick is lonely, so he replies, and they flirt back and forth and Patrick thinks _ What exactly _ is _this, _ and then Brendon sends some utterly filthy pictures that make Patrick blush but, hey, that clears up the confusion. The pictures are _immensely _ enjoyable. Patrick doesn’t send back any of his own — not that stupid — but he doesn’t delete them, either. 

They meet up when Patrick’s back in London, go out clubbing which Patrick _ hates _ but he does it because Brendon seems excited by it and, the next morning, their picture is all over the gossip sites and Brendon is labelled as Patrick Stump’s boyfriend. Megan wants to meet Brendon. Pete texts something stilted about _ hope he treats you right _ and Patrick feels like his heart has been sliced as finely as sashimi, but he doesn’t _ deny _ it. So that’s it. He’s in a relationship with Brendon. He can do this. He can be a functioning adult in a functioning relationship and everything will be fine.

They go out for dinner, Patrick and Brendon, and Brendon holds Patrick’s hand in public and it’s ridiculous and also _ nice. _ Patrick’s lovelife so far has been a disastrous thing, in shades of black and white and drab grey but Brendon is a _ rainbow, _ lovely but blinding. He laughs during their first date, takes Patrick’s hand over the table and kisses his palm and says, “It’s been a while for you, hasn’t it?”

Patrick winces and chokes on his starter. “I — I’m nearly thirty years old. Hardly a blushing virgin, I’ve been with… other people. Recently.” _ Pete. _ He’s been with Pete. 

“How recently?” Brendon asks lightly. 

“Um, sort of — _ quite _ recently,” Patrick says. “He was — We couldn’t come out, exactly, so it was, you know. I’m over him. Mostly. I’m mostly over him.”

“I can tell,” Brendon says. 

Patrick frowns. “What do you mean, you can tell?”

“You’re needy,” Brendon shrugs, pointing at Patrick with his soup spoon. “Don’t look like that, it’s not a _ bad _ thing. But you want validation. Approval. You’ve got this intense look about you.”

“Oh.”

Patrick, who didn’t think he looked anything but normal in a beige sort of way, begins to feel self-conscious. 

For a few weeks, he thinks Pete is ignoring him. But then Pete sends him a ridiculous text — _ just realised: everything in the universe is either Pizza, or Not Pizza _ — and they fall right back into their back-and-forth. 

Is it disloyal? To text Pete when he’s with Brendon? He doesn’t _ love _ Brendon, but he _ likes _ him, and they’re supposed to be exclusive. Is it cheating to think about Pete when Patrick is alone in the shower, his hand slippery with soap, his thoughts hazy and disordered and _ always _ about Pete? A few more months go by and Patrick dates Brendon and things are… okay. Not fantastic. But fine. 

He prepares to audition for the Scorsese part.

_ you can do this, focus, there’s no one quite like you, _ Pete texts him. Patrick cherishes that message. Brendon seems… annoyed. By everything generally and Patrick’s audition specifically. It’s becoming hard work, and it shouldn’t be hard work at this stage.

So, Patrick makes a list of the things he likes about Brendon:

  1. Brendon is attractive. _Astonishingly_ attractive. The kind of attractive that earns him a mention in articles with titles like _Musical Theatre’s Hottest Stars._ He looks good lounging around Patrick’s house in white t-shirts and tight jeans and no socks or shoes. 
  2. Brendon calls Patrick endearing names like sweetheart, darling, and petal. Because Brendon is more English than Dame Judy Dench, he never, _ever_ calls Patrick _baby. _So, there’s no need to make unfavourable comparisons.
  3. Brendon and Patrick have nice sex. It’s perfectly satisfactory and Patrick always comes, just once, and it’s… satisfying. Patrick is satisfied. 
  4. Brendon is not Pete. 

And then, he makes a list of the things he _ doesn’t _like about Brendon:

  1. Brendon doesn’t laugh at Patrick’s jokes. He smiles, but it’s small and tight and he looks like he’s tolerating Patrick saying anything at all. 
  2. Patrick is… somewhat convinced that Brendon only uses pet names because he frequently forgets Patrick’s _actual name. _Darling and sweetheart and petal buy him a moment to scroll through some hitherto unused internal rolodex until he lands on P is for Patrick. 
  3. Brendon and Patrick have _adequate _sex. Patrick never flops onto the mattress, boneless, and stares at the ceiling and wonders if his legs will ever move again. Patrick wants to be _more_ than satisfied. He wants to feel fucked beyond lucidity. He wants to see the fucking _stars,_ like he did with — with — 
    1. Pete. He wants to feel like he did with Pete.
  4. Brendon is not Pete.

It’s a fairly damning list. Patrick keeps throwing his heart against the wall and hoping it will stick. It doesn’t, though. All it does it leave a wet, sticky mark. Plus, Patrick’s never dumped someone in his _ life_, so he sits on it and frets about it and hopes that things will get better. 

They do not. 

“You might not get it,” Brendon says, when they’re lying on Patrick’s couch watching Step Brothers. Patrick wanted to watch L’age d’Or, but Brendon doesn’t like French cinema. 

Patrick squints up at him. “What?”

“The part,” Brendon says. “Oscar Wilde. I’m just saying, it’s worth bearing in mind that you might not get it.”

Patrick frowns. “But I might.”

“I’m not saying you won’t,” Brendon says. “It’s just, you’re up against a lot of big names. They’ll probably go with Tom Hardy, he’s a sound investment.”

“Oh,” Patrick says. “But, you know, there’s a reasonable possibility that they _ won’t _ go with Tom Hardy. Gabe thinks—”

“Gabe’s an idiot,” Brendon says loftily. Brendon, who works in musical theatre. “Look, I’m not trying to be an arsehole, I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

Patrick sits up. “I think we need to have a conversation.”

He texts Megan an hour later: _ I just dumped Brendon! Yay! _

She replies: _ Well done! _ Then: _ Wait, why is this a good thing? _

Patrick smiles. _ Because he was an arsehole and he wanted Tom Hardy to get the Oscar Wilde role. _

She texts back: _ You’re worth 100 Tom Hardys. _

_ 1 million! _

_ Who cares about Tom bloody Hardy? _

_ I’m proud of you. _

Patrick is proud, too.

He flies out to Los Angeles the next day and reads for the part and he fucking _ nails _ it, because he was _ born _ to play this role. He doesn’t text Pete. No point, is there? It’s not like they’re going to make plans or go out for dinner or anything like that. He half-heartedly looks at a couple of apartments while he’s there, but nothing seems right, so he doesn’t pursue it. He flies back home and looks at the calendar and realises, somehow, he’s limped through _ seven months _ since he wrapped filming with Pete. Seven months and he’s still single, still rattling around his house in Maida Vale.

Still hopelessly, _ painfully _ in love with Pete. 

So much has changed, so much has stayed exactly the same, and that’s fine. Hayley — he’s still seeing Hayley, accepts now that he _ needs _ to see Hayley — she tells him that it’s totally fine. It’s okay for his professional life to hurtle down the motorway at full speed while his heart lingers on the driveway wondering what the hell is going on. Patrick’s always been so good at splitting himself into two people. Now it seems like his stitch has come loose and he can’t pull himself back together. 

Long walks. They help. Meandering through central London and across Regent’s Park and stopping off for coffee somewhere small and unremarkable. Taking deep breaths of smoggy winter air until his lungs ache. Patrick’s giving it a go right now, walking the January pavement and thinking about nothing in particular until he passes a newsstand. He stops. He blinks. He closes his eyes and tells himself he’s hallucinating. 

For some reason, _ Attitude _ is the most heavily featured magazine on the stand. Not Hello, or GQ, or Harper’s Bazaar. _ Attitude. _ And on the cover of Attitude, the _ only thing on the cover of Attitude, _ is Pete Wentz’s _ face. _

It’s… arresting. The picture. Pete has bleached his hair and the contrast between that and his dark, dark stubble is _ remarkable. _ It’s a closeup shot: just his face and his throat and his _ gorgeous fucking hands _ tugging up the collar of his coat. His amber eyes glow as he stares defiantly into the camera. His mouth curls up at one corner. He is astonishingly lovely. Patrick’s lungs spasm. His pulse is a trembling, messy thing. He’s going to pass out if he doesn’t — doesn’t _ touch _ that magazine cover. 

He yanks his hand back like he’s been stung when he notices the tag line. The only thing on the cover of the magazine aside from Pete’s face. 

_ Let’s get one thing straight... I’m not. _

Patrick sweats tidally. His palms, his forehead, his underarms damp and hot under his coat. He blinks. The magazine doesn’t change at all. Three people lean past him and grab a copy. Patrick has turned to stone. 

“You want anything or not, mate?” the vendor asks. 

Patrick stumbles into life and motion and grabs awkwardly at a copy. “Um. Just this, please.”

He tucks the magazine into his jacket and feels it burn against his skin. He doesn’t read it until he’s safely home and in his living room, sitting in the same chair he read the script a _ lifetime _ ago.

“Okay,” he says to Penny, who thumps her tail gently. “It’s probably not what it looks like.” Penny licks his hand. Patrick opens the magazine and he _ devours _ the article. 

_ “I’m bisexual. _

_ “There, I said it. The world didn’t end. I’ve been bisexual every time I’ve starred in a movie, every time I’ve topped one of those stupid fucking Hollywood’s Hottest lists. My bisexuality doesn’t define me. It _ is _ me. Yes, I’m male-attracted. No, it doesn’t change a single thing about me. I am, have always been, will always be bisexual. Most importantly, though? I’m Pete. And I’m proud to be who I am.” _

_ I ask Pete if his coming out has anything to do with the rumours about his relationship with co-star Patrick Stump. Pete is quiet for a moment. _

_ “Patrick will always be my best friend. But he’s not the reason I’m coming out.” _

“He fucking did it,” Patrick whispers. “Oh, that wonderful man. He went and did it.”

Penny barks agreeably. 

When Patrick calms down — which takes, like, _ weeks, _if he’s honest — he decides that Pete coming out isn’t a big deal. He didn’t direct Patrick to the article, doesn’t mention it when they text, makes no reference to it whatsoever. So, it doesn’t have anything to do with Patrick. Probably has a boyfriend he wants to introduce. 

(It doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t _ fucking hurt.) _

The trailer drops. The Ways filmed the whole project without a title but now it’s revealed — Save Rock and Roll — and the reception is overwhelmingly positive. Amazing, in fact. Better than Patrick allowed himself to anticipate. The internet rekindles their passion for all things Stentz. Patrick remembers that he’s got a press tour to run. With Pete. 

When Pete texts and says _ tonight show next week. excited? _ Patrick _ doesn’t _ spend an hour with a pillow pressed over his face, hyperventilating and screaming as loudly as he wants to without alarming his neighbours. Patrick _ doesn’t _ reply with _ Oh fuck you, you’re breaking my heart every time you text me and now I have to deal with being in the same room as you and talking about our characters’ romantic fucking fairytale and everyone is going to bring up the Stentz thing and ask about you coming out and ask if it’s got anything to do with me and it DOESN’T and I’m going to have eighteen different kinds of breakdown but, like, privately because you’re not ALLOWED to know what you’re doing to me. Do you hear me, Wentz? You’re not a-fucking-llowed. _

Instead he says _ Haven’t missed you at all. Bet you somehow managed to get even uglier. _ Pete sends him back a string of crying emojis and that’s that. Patrick’s not going to think about it. 

Patrick finds himself at Megan’s place, the day before he flies out to New York. He was invited for a family dinner, but honestly, his mum’s shown up and, if Patrick refused, his life would no longer be worth living. He knocks at the door at around six, a bottle of decent wine under his arm and sweets for Megan’s eldest in his pocket. He stands on the doorstep and takes a moment just to breathe in the warm smell of home-cooking, to listen to the bustle from beyond the door before he goes inside. 

“Hello, love,” his mum greets him, pulling him into a hug when he steps into the kitchen. “You’re getting too thin.”

“You always say that,” he reminds her. 

“She always says it _ to you,” _ Megan points out, whisking by with something that smells delicious. 

“I only asked if you were planning another after Tilly! I didn’t mean you looked actively, significantly, _ currently _ pregnant!”

“It was the _ way _ you said it, mother, honestly—”

“Ooh, beef,” says Robert, Megan’s husband, stealing something from the plate. “And Patrick. Hello, Patrick! Nice drive over, mate?”

Robert is _ obsessed _ with travel times and alternate routes and possible diversions. He is a walking AA road map. 

Patrick shrugs. “Not too bad, got caught in roadworks on the North Circular.”

Robert sucks air through his teeth and shoves his hands into his pockets. “You took the North Circular? No wonder. Now, if you took the A41...”

“Be quiet, Robert, no one cares. Where’s Brendon,” Patrick’s mum asks. “Couldn’t he make it?”

Megan covers her face with her hands. “Oh God, _ mother!” _

“We split up, mum.”

“Oh. That’s a shame. I liked him.”

“I didn’t,” Patrick says.

“Me neither,” Megan agrees loyally. She looks at the clock, then at her phone, and smiles a private little smile. “Would you mind watching the girls for a few minutes? Just while Rob and I finish up dinner and mum concludes her summoning ceremony for the rest of her coven.”

“Rude,” Patrick’s mum mutters. 

“Do I have a choice?” Patrick asks.

Megan looks at the clock again and shoves him towards the kitchen door. “Not really. Go. Be a fabulous uncle.”

Patrick lies on the living room floor and obediently allows Margot, the eldest, to smear him in facepaint. Apparently, he looks very beautiful. The look that the baby gives him from her playmat suggests otherwise. Still, it’s nice. Domestic. Everything Patrick doesn’t have because Patrick can’t hold down a relationship. 

The doorbell rings. Megan shouts from the kitchen, “Patrick? Could you get that for me, love?”

“Staff, am I?” he asks his nieces, who look back at him like he is. He scoops the smallest one up from her mat and balances her on his hip. “Come on then, munchkin, let’s go and see who’s at the door.”

There’s a shadow of a man through the frosted glass. Tilly spits up a mouthful of watery milk puke over his shoulder. Truly, a life of glamour, he thinks, opening the door. 

“Oh,” he says quietly, swaying back on his heels for a moment. “It’s. Oh, bloody hell, what are _ you _doing here?”

_ Pete _ blinks at Patrick from the doorstep. Pete, who should be in Los Angeles, not suburban North London, surrounded by Ford Fiestas and drab street lighting. He’s wearing an oversized hooded sweater and hideous jeans, his bleached hair showing a fraction of an inch of dark roots and his eyes heavy with jetlag. Patrick is painfully aware that he’s seeing Pete — _ Pete, his Pete — _for the first time in eight months while he’s wearing a baby puke stain on his shoulder and more makeup than Julian Clary. 

“Hi,” Pete says meekly. “I — Hi.”

Patrick’s chest is going to burst open. He’s having a heart attack, or a stroke, or a fucking _ seizure. _ There is something, some great clawing _ panic _ at the back of his throat and it wants to eat him alive. He hands Pete the baby. He has no idea _ why _ he’s handing Pete the baby, but Pete takes her anyway and rests her against his hip and makes soft, cooing noises as she chews her fat little fist and stares at him with wide, trusting eyes. Oh God. Now Patrick is watching Pete hold a baby. Patrick has daydreamed about this, about fairytales and happily ever afters. Clearly there is a God and they are cruel and unkind.

“Hello, angel,” Pete says, somewhere far away as Patrick leans against the doorframe and wills himself upright. “What’s your name?”

“Um,” Patrick says. “Matilda. Tilly. Her name is — is Tilly.”

“Tilly,” Pete repeats softly.

“Pete,” Patrick asks weakly. “Pete, what are you _ doing _ here?”

Pete looks at Patrick and Patrick watches his Adam’s apple bob in his lovely throat. “I heard you broke up with Brendon.”

There are _ many _ different ways Patrick could interpret that sentence. “Bloody hell,” Patrick says. “I… I mean. But are you doing _ here. _ Specifically. How did you even know I’d _ be _ here. How did you know where here _ is?” _

“Uh, so. About that…”

“Pete!” Megan says, emerging from the kitchen. “What a lovely surprise! Just in time for dinner.”

Pete shouldn’t know Megan’s address, Patrick thinks distantly. Patrick is going to kill Megan. 

On the doorstep, Pete looks at Patrick. _ I’m right here waiting, _ the look says. Patrick still understands, hasn’t forgotten how to communicate with Pete without saying anything at all. His chest shudders, he thinks he lets out a little sob but he must smile or move or do _ something _ and Pete understands it immediately because Pete is handing the baby to Megan and pulling Patrick against his chest and Patrick can smell him, his cologne and his skin and the raw basenote of his sweat and Patrick knows, he knows Pete still understands him, too. 

“Fuck,” Patrick mumbles, his face pressed to Pete’s throat (Pete’s pulse is just as frighteningly hard as Patrick’s, he’s _ scared, _ he’s fucking _ scared, _as scared as Patrick). “I can’t believe — God. I’ve missed you so much.”

“Yeah,” Pete whispers. “Me too.”

They don’t move for a long time. Maybe. That’s what the books say about moments like this, isn’t it? Could be a short time, actually. Could be a couple of seconds. Patrick’s lost all concept of minutes and hours, he just presses into Pete — he’s gotten_ broader _ somehow, thicker around his shoulders and his chest and solid through his narrow waist. Patrick recalibrates to this new Pete. His knuckles lock and he can’t unwind his ugly grasping _ love _ from the front of Pete’s hoodie. Pete doesn’t seem to know how to pull his nose out of Patrick’s hair. 

Eventually, Pete rests his forehead against Patrick’s and brings their mouths close together but he doesn’t _ quite _kiss him. Just rubs his nose the length of Patrick’s. Just breathes deeply. Like he’s taking in the taste. 

“My sister made dinner,” Patrick whispers, Pete’s hands clasped on his face and his hands clasped on Pete’s. He doesn’t say _ I love you, I love you, I love you so much and you’ve fucked me up for anyone else, you utter bastard. _“Do you want to have dinner with us?”

“Love to,” Pete agrees, and he doesn’t say _ You made me do it, you pushed me away, asshole, but I’m back and I’m yours if you want me. _

Funny. How they don’t need to say any of it.

They don’t pull apart, not really. They just melt into a position where they can traverse the hallway together. Side by side. Patrick’s face feels blotchy, but Pete’s is too, so it doesn’t matter. 

“God, I can’t believe it,” Patrick says. Pete’s mouth tips up at the corners. “You came back.”

Pete smiles at him, brings Patrick’s hand to his mouth and kisses each knuckle in turn. 

“Babe,” he says. “Where else would I go?”

They go into the kitchen together. There’s press to run and agents to call and, at some point, they’re going to have to make some kind of formal announcement to millions of strangers. Patrick can _ be _with Pete. Patrick, who’s loved Pete sweet and small like sips of whiskey, sharp and barbed like bites of glass. Patrick can love Pete aloud once they’ve dealt with those things. But that can wait. 

For tonight. Everything can just... wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See? To those who doubted me, I hope I didn't make you cry.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter. Sorry this sort of... spiralled. I honestly thought I could wrap it up in about ten chapters, but hey ho. I hope you've enjoyed reading it even half as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

It starts like this.

They sit in Patrick’s car. Side by side in the dark, the street lights spidering over their jeans and their hands and the headliner. The key is in the ignition, but not turned on. The air is cool, damp, smells of leaves and earth and London. It’s spring, technically, but it’s England, so you wouldn’t know it. Not when you’re like Pete and used to Los Angeles and palm trees and dry heat. 

Not that Pete’s thinking about the weather. Not that Pete’s thinking about anything but Patrick’s gorgeous, pink-warm fucking _ mouth. _

They’ve been kissing since they pulled up outside of Patrick’s house and Pete gave Patrick a measured look over the gear shift and Patrick looked back and said “So,” and Pete wasn’t about to let him ruin the moment just like that, so Pete leaned over and pushed his mouth up against Patrick’s and now he’s spent the past ten minutes reminding himself that Patrick’s mouth is… unrivalled. Patrick’s tongue and Patrick’s teeth and Patrick’s hands tangled in Pete’s hair and Patrick’s dick stiff and obvious as anything under his jeans. No comparison. Don’t even try to compete. 

“Bloody hell,” Patrick breathes, pulling back. 

Pete tugs at the handful of coppery hair in his fist and tries to pull Patrick back onto his mouth because they don’t need to waste time _ breathing. _ He’s no biologist, but he’s almost certain they can sustain each other like this, taking breathy gulps of air from the bottom of one another’s lungs. Pete’s willing to experiment, anyway. What’s the worst that can happen? Passing out isn’t _ that _ big of a deal. 

“Stop it,” Patrick says, throwing his head back as Pete licks over his throat. “Oh fuck, just — I’m trying to concentrate!”

“Mmm,” Pete hums, hooking his teeth into Patrick’s collar bone. He takes an experimental bite, teeth pressing down through Patrick’s shirt. The sound Patrick makes is exquisite. Good experiment. Interesting outcome. Definitely worth repeating. “You’re the hottest thing,” Pete whispers into Patrick’s ear. “Just… the hottest fucking thing. Want to get my mouth all over you, want to spread you out and taste you ’til you can’t fucking remember anything but my name. Want to sink inside you and pull you apart inch by inch and—”

“Jesus Christ, _ Pete, _ stop,” Patrick gasps, taking Pete firmly by the ears and holding him at arm’s length. Pete pouts, whines, and paws at Patrick’s chest. “Stop,” Patrick says, laughing this time. “God, just _ stop, _I have something… important to say."

Pete looks down at his cock, at Patrick’s cock, then back up at Patrick’s face. “Can’t it wait?”

“No,” Patrick says, framing Pete’s face with his hands. Patrick looks at Pete carefully, his strawberry rose mouth shading into a smile so fond that it’s like standing in a sunbeam. No one has ever looked at Pete the way that Patrick is looking at Pete. Like he’s a piece of art. Pete _ basks _ in that smile. “I love you,” Patrick says, brushing his thumb over Pete’s lower lip. “I love you _ so much. _ It’s been hell without you.”

Their foreheads touch and Pete soaks up the contact like antivenom. Like _ cocaine. _ This close and in the gloom, he can’t make out the exact shade of Patrick’s eyes. They’re gold and blue and a dozen different shades of grey and so, so sincere. He wraps his hands over Patrick’s and kisses him, just once, soft on the mouth and with his eyes open. 

Pete is definitely in love.

He doesn’t think he’s ever been in love before. Not like this. Every time Pete’s fallen in love it tastes bitter, a clod of earth between his teeth, desperate to choke him every time he bites down on it. This time, it feels easy. This time, he doesn’t need to think before he replies. 

“I love you,” Pete says. “I’ve loved you for — for forever.”

“I know,” Patrick says.

“I was just — I was so scared. I’m not scared anymore.”

“You were so _ brave,” _Patrick corrects, sounding fond. “So brave to come out like that.”

“God, I felt so fucking stupid. I’m just a fraud, pretending I’m special.”

“Don’t. On behalf of every queer or questioning kid who sees _ Pete fucking Wentz _ on the cover of Attitude, thank you. You did a good thing. I’m proud of you.”

Pete rubs his nose against Patrick’s, then kisses him deep and slow and says, “Shall we go inside?”

Patrick nods. “I’d like that,” he says. It’s the last thing he says for a while.

Instead of talking, it’s this: It’s crushing up against the bedroom door, and Pete falling to his knees so hard they bruise, and scraping his knuckles bloody on Patrick’s zipper because he’s _ frantic _ with the need to get his mouth on Patrick’s cock. It’s sucking Patrick off with Pete’s shoulders pressed into Patrick’s thighs because Patrick’s knees have buckled and he’s sobbing into his forearm as Pete fingers him through it. It’s Patrick’s come on Pete’s mouth, and his chin, and dripping down onto his tattoos as he keeps fingering Patrick open, as he turns him and licks where his hand’s buried and Patrick bucks back and cries out and Pete is so hard he’s going _ blind. _

It’s winding around one another like vines, grasping hands and desperate mouths as Patrick sits in Pete’s lap in the middle of the bed and slowly, slowly, _ slowly _ impales himself on Pete’s aching cock. It’s taking long and grateful sips of breath from one another’s lungs as Patrick looks at Pete so intently, so _ adoringly. _ It’s Patrick gasping as he fucks himself slowly on Pete’s dick, his heavenly thighs wrapped around Pete’s waist, his hands tangled in Pete’s hair, pressed so close that not even sweat can slide between them. It’s feeling Patrick come again, feeling him ripple with it from his shoulders to his hips, his come roping thickly over Pete’s stomach and chest. It’s pressing Patrick back into the mattress and fucking him through it until Pete shakes apart.

It’s flipping Patrick over and taking languorous licks at his hole, greedy and insatiable, lapping up lube and come and sweat, desperate as anything. It’s hearing Patrick make maddening noises, his hips squirming, until he makes this beautiful, broken sound then falls quiet and his fists loosen on the sheets and Pete rests his sweaty forehead against the small of Patrick’s back and kisses him, once, on the base of his spine. 

It’s like that. 

“God,” Pete whispers, in the ruined mess of Patrick’s bed sheets, in the sticky pools of lube and come. “I’ve fucking _ missed this.” _

Patrick is quiet and still, facedown on the mattress, his chin pillowed on his folded arms, his eyes half-closed in the gloom. “Shh,” he mumbles. “I’ve been fucked into the afterlife. Don’t speak, your accent’ll ruin everything.”

“Do you mean after_ glow?” _

“No. I can’t feel my whole _ head. _ Pretty sure ’m dead. It’s fine, don’t be sad, ’m okay with it.”

“You know,” Pete says, folding an arm over Patrick’s waist. He’s gained a bit of weight for the Oscar Wilde role. It makes him… softer. Warm and smooth as a summer peach. “The French call an orgasm _ la petite mort, _it means little death.”

“I know _ that, _ ’m _ dead, _ not _ stupid. _ Anyway, ’s a big death,” Patrick slurs. “Great big buggering death.”

Pete laughs and kisses just behind Patrick’s ear. “I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Patrick says. “So much.”

“So… us, huh?” Pete asks hesitantly. He hates the hesitance. He hates how it feels to offer up his heart for a beating. “You don’t have to answer that. Like, if you don’t want to.”

Patrick smiles lazily. “I suppose I’m stuck with you now, aren’t I?”

“I guess so.” Pete kisses him gently. Just because he can. He kisses him and Patrick kisses back and it’s easy and wonderful and… Perfect. It’s _ perfect. _

Pete blinks at some point and it’s dark and Patrick is solid and hot against his chest. When Pete blinks again it’s light out. It’s light because it’s morning. It’s actually _ morning _ and he’s slept for the whole night without chemical assistance or drinking himself into unconsciousness and Patrick is _ right there _ , in his arms, and Pete lies there, quietly, absorbing how _ happy _ he feels. Pete’s _ almost never _ happy. He revels in it, rolls in it like a warm and comfortable coat. For the first time in his life, Pete is still. 

Then, he starts to worry he might’ve actually gone ahead and _ died _ during the night. So, he wriggles his toes and rotates his ankles and he’s definitely _ not dead _ but his fidgeting wakes Patrick who blinks, confused, then yawns adorably, then looks at Pete and, very quietly, says, “Hey, you. Good morning.”

“Hey yourself,” Pete says. “You recovered, I guess.” Patrick gives him a questioning look. “You know. From death?”

Patrick blushes redder than a radiation burn, all the way up from his throat to his hairline. It’s nice. Pete gets to spend the rest of his _ life _ making Patrick blush. “I say stupid things when I’m sex drunk,” he tells Pete defensively. “It’s your fault. You basically drugged me. I was having an — an episode.”

A laugh bursts out of Pete. “Maybe you just need a stronger dose,” he says, ducking under the covers. “Like turning up the morphine, you know.”

“No,” Patrick says. He says it like he’s trying to sound firm, but he doesn’t. Not really. “No, this is — I have to pack.”

“Mmhmm,” Pete murmurs, biting gently into Patrick’s nipple. The noise Patrick makes is gratifying. A gutted, desperate sort of noise, like the noise a drowning man makes as he breaks the surface and sucks in a breath. “I was thinking, we should move in together.”

“Pete, this isn’t — we have a flight to catch. And we’ve been in an actual relationship for twelve _ hours.” _

“I know,” Pete agrees lazily, kissing his way over Patrick’s stomach. “Where, though? The LA house is bigger, but I do love London. London has you and you’re, like, _ awesome.” _

Patrick breathes through his nose and tries to look stern.“Packing, Pete,” he says briskly. But his penis looks all rosy and pleased, so Pete decides to address all further conversation to that instead. 

“Later,” he says soothingly, to Patrick’s cock, “talk to me about our house.”

“You’re going to get us into trouble,” Patrick whimpers. “We’re going to be _ late.” _

“No doubt about it,” Pete says, walking his fingers up Patrick’s dick. It drools hopefully. “Maybe we should look for a renovation project somewhere nearby. Oh! Or a halfway house. How do you feel about New York?” Then, he takes Patrick’s swollen cock into his mouth and doesn’t stop until his nose brushes Patrick’s pubes. 

Patrick’s hands sink into Pete’s hair. “Oh _ God, _ we should… we need to…” Pete licks gently into the slit, where Patrick’s bitter and salty as a secret. “Oh _ fuck! _ Fuck it. Whatever you want. I’ll do anything you like if you just — don’t stop.”

It’s ridiculous how much Pete loves this man. It makes his lungs itch, makes his heart feel tight. It’s walking a constant trembling high wire knowing the fall could, in theory, kill him, but there’s a safety net just beneath. They correspond: a perfect fifth. Pete closes his eyes and lets himself come home.

***

** _Updated 5:16pm_ **

_ Black Parade Productions and Starship Management have released a joint statement regarding rumours that Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump, co-stars of upcoming Hollywood excess love story Save Rock and Roll, are now romantically involved: _

_ “There’s been a lot of speculation over the past year or so,” Gerard Way, co-director, informed reporters at Tuesday morning’s press conference in Los Angeles. “We’re all aware here at Black Parade that they’re in a relationship and we’re totally fucking stoked for them. Wait, can I say fucking stoked? Fuck it, whatever. We’ve talked it over and there’s no reason at all for this to derail the authenticity of the film. We ship it, so should you.” _

_ Pete and Patrick, known collectively by their fans as Stentz, sparked speculation about the exact nature of their relationship last summer, when rumours hit the press that the two were more than co-stars. Despite the stories, nothing was confirmed by either side. Pete came out as bisexual in an explosive interview with Attitude magazine earlier in the year. Although questions were asked about his relationship with Stump, Pete kept schtum, informing fans that coming out was a personal choice. Meanwhile, Stump was linked to theatre hotshot Brendon Urie. Movie fans are keen to find out what impact this news will have on their soon-to-be-released joint project. _

_ “Mr Stump and Mr Wentz have never behaved in anything but a professional manner,” Gabe Saporta of Starship Management told the press. “The film is a wonderful thing and their private life will have no impact on that whatsoever. I’m not here to speculate about when the relationship started. Although the times they are a-changin’, the film and television industry is still rife with homophobia and I commend Mr Wentz on his courage in coming out so publicly. I don’t doubt that they’ll be very happy together.” _

_ Pete and Patrick have, so far, not responded to requests for interview. However, Patrick’s father — musician David Stump — did release a short statement regarding the news. _

_ “I am so proud of my son and all he’s done with his career. I can’t see what his relationship with Pete has to do with his ability to act his heart out, but I wish them every happiness and joy for the future.” _

The press release works out. Suddenly, Pete’s DMs are rammed full of kids saying thank you. Gay kids and bi kids and pan kids and trans kids and kids who’re questioning and kids who don’t want to slap a label on it but know they don’t fit the box in some way. 

“You’re a gay icon,” Patrick says.

“We have all these kids,” Pete tells Patrick gleefully, as he answers questions on Twitter about coming out, about how scared and lonely and fucking… _ sad _ he felt, every day before he stood up and said _ This is me _ . “Look at them, all these queer, confused, scared, _ hopeful _ kids who feel a little more comfortable in their skin because of _ us. _ Because people like us are out and proud and showing them it’s okay.”

And Patrick laughs, because Patrick still doesn’t think of himself as ‘like Pete’ even though he’s tipped for another BAFTA, picked up a Television Choice award, and features regularly in the gossip rags on both sides of the Atlantic. “You, you mean,” he says fondly, brushing a kiss to Pete’s temple. “They’re comfortable because of _ you.” _

_ “Us,” _ Pete repeats stubbornly.

“Mmhmm, I’m proud of you. And them,” Patrick says. Pete raises an eyebrow. “Okay, fine, and me. Happy now?”

Pete grins and tackles Patrick down onto the couch. “Ecstatic,” he tells him, deadpan, between bites at Patrick’s collar bone. “Totally stoked.”

It isn’t all smooth sailing. Like, _ obviously _ not. Hollywood is still Hollywood and Pete loses the fantasy role due to something the producers call _ scripting conflicts _ but everyone knows is _ blatant homophobia. _ That’s okay, though. There’ll be other roles, and Pete isn’t worried about finding them. And in the meantime, he’s going to sue them _ so hard. _

There’s some social media nastiness, surprising no one. Pete doesn’t care what they say about _ him, _ but he’s _ outraged _ about the stuff they say about Patrick. So, he keeps a growing list of Twitter users, and, one day, he’s going to track them down and crush their windpipes with his thumbs. Of course, Patrick tells him he can’t do that. _ Something something, laws against it, something something. _

Pete will exact his revenge. Even if it’s just living the best life he possibly can.

***

“Pete, over here. Entertainment Tonight, do you have a minute?”

“Huh? Sure, of course.” Pete crosses the red carpet in his suit and tie and leans into the mic. 

“So, a pretty big night for you, huh?”

Pete laughs, and watches Patrick taking selfies with a group of fans by the barrier. They slept out overnight, apparently. Wanted to make sure they got the best possible view at the expense of not getting hypothermia. Pete snuck down from the hotel in the small hours, handed out coffee and blankets, took pictures, listened to them talk about how much this movie means to them. Londoners are crazy. 

“Yeah, it’s quite something. Not every day you get to premiere a Way Brothers masterpiece.”

“They’re already talking about the Academy Awards,” the reporter says. “Are you excited?”

“I mean, who wouldn’t be?” Pete says. “It’s just — it’s a spectacular piece of cinema, seriously. We got to watch the awards screening a few weeks back and, honestly, Patrick is…”

“Patrick is what? My ears are burning,” Patrick says, wandering over with his hands in his pockets. “Hello, darling, thought I’d lost you for a moment.”

“I’m just saying you’re incredible, babe. Tell him, I was only saying _ nice _ things, right?”

She laughs, and so does Patrick. A blinding flash goes off and Pete blinks, dizzy. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the fountain in the centre of Leicester Square. A warm, tight feeling pulses out through his chest.

“And the two of you,” she says, raising her eyebrows. “Still happy together?”

“As happy as a Turtles song,” Patrick confirms, nudging Pete with his shoulder. 

“He puts up with me,” Pete confirms. Patrick bites his lip, rolls his neck and shoulders in a dorky little dance and shoots Pete a wink. 

“Just barely, darling.”

“I’m not easy to put up with. But he’s an amazing actor, so maybe he’s just _ pretending _to put up with me. Can’t rule it out, you know.”

“I’m not _ that _ good,” Patrick objects playfully. He touches Pete’s shoulder.

“That’s not what the Academy seems to think,” she says, and Patrick blushes. “You’re tipped for a Best Actor nomination, anything to say about that?”

Patrick looks at her thoughtfully for a moment. 

“Let’s make one thing absolutely clear,” he says. “Patrick Stump will _ not _ be nominated for an _ Oscar.” _

***

They hold a Patrick Stump Will Not Be Nominated for an Oscar lunch at Patrick’s place in London. The original plan was a Patrick’s Oscar Nomination party, but Patrick kept replaying the soundbite from the premiere whenever Pete mentioned it, so he changed the name. He invites Will and Gabe and Megan and Robert and Patrick’s mom and Joe and Andy who fly out from L.A. and, somehow, complain less about traversing the fucking _ Atlantic _ than Robert complains about driving from north London. 

Pete wears a white tuxedo jacket with inky black lapels because he knows it really sets off his bleach job. Patrick insists he’s going to show up in pyjamas but instead he wears a sapphire blue suit, cut impeccably, with a patterned shirt and a freshly-cut gerbera in the buttonhole. 

“I don’t know why we’re doing this,” Patrick grumbles over spicy yellowfin tuna, cucumber, and green apple wasabi. “I’m _ not _ going to be nominated for an Oscar. This is absurd.”

“That’s why it’s a Patrick _ Won’t _ Be Nominated party,” Pete tells him seriously. 

“Yep, we’re doing this because we love you,” Gabe chips in.

“You’re way too shitty for a nomination,” Will says.

“Basically the worst,” Megan says. “We could try to find someone more terrible, but it would be a stretch.”

“We took the A41 on the way in,” Robert tells a nonplussed Andy. “Can’t go wrong with the A41, usually, but there was god awful—”

“Be _ quiet, _ Robert,” Patrick’s mom says. “We’re trying to tell Patrick he’s bloody awful.”

“Thank you,” Patrick says drily. “You’re all too kind.”

“We just want to be here to comfort you when you’re, y’know, _ not _ nominated,” Joe soothes.

“Think of it as a circle of grief,” Pete says sagely, kissing Patrick on the corner of his mouth. “We’re here to lift you up.”

“To raise your spirits in this trying time,” Megan agrees.

“Well, he can’t be _ that _ bloody awful, did you see how much he’s getting paid for that Scorsese film?” Robert asks his mother-in-law, bewildered. “Bloody ridiculous, fopping about like he’s in a school play.”

“I hate you all,” Patrick tells them, sounding fond. “You’re all bastards, every single one of you.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say to people who only came to support you,” Pete says.

“I’m just here because Pete said there’d be free food,” Andy says, shoving in a mouthful of vegan california rolls. “He did not disappoint.”

Pete’s phone beeps dramatically, placed as a centrepiece on the dining room table. Pete’s chest feels tight and Patrick drains a perfectly colourless shade of putty. “Fuck,” he whispers. “Is that...?”

“Let me take a look,” Pete says, reaching for the phone. He reads the notification and then looks up and smiles at Patrick sadly. “Well,” he begins. “This is kind of embarrassing. I’m sorry, babe.”

Patrick looks wretched. “No,” he stammers. “No, it’s completely fine. I knew I wouldn’t be nominated. It’s just a stupid dick-swinging contest for old, white, straight men anyway.”

“Oh,” Pete says, smiling so hard he thinks his face might crack. “So, I can tell them you _ don’t _ want your nomination for Best Actor, can I?”

Patrick punches him in the shoulder for that. A bit too hard to be a joke, if Pete’s honest. Then, Patrick cries a little, which. Okay, fair. Pete’s not going to hold that against him or laugh at him about it _ too _ much. He’ll laugh at him a little. Just the right amount of laughter. God, Patrick deserves this so much. Pete is so proud. 

***

“We should get married,” Pete says one day. 

They’re on the deck of the house in Los Angeles, the swimming pool clear and blue and the sky stretching hazily above them, criss-crossed with clouds that look like they were pulled straight out of a Vermeer. This high up in the hills, there’s no smell of car exhaust or the creeping stench of the LA river. The breeze ripples gently across the pacific and Patrick dips his bare toes into the water and laughs softly.

“Don’t much care about things like that,” Patrick says, kicking droplets out across the pool’s surface. “I mean, I always got the feeling that, you know, marriage wasn’t an institution that really _ welcomed _ men like me. Throw us the consolation prize of a civil partnership and call it a day and — good _ Lord, _ what the hell are you _ doing?” _

When Patrick turns around, Pete is on one knee behind him. In his hand he holds a small black box and in that box is a plain gold band. “Um,” Pete says, feeling bashful and stupid. “So, it was, like, a really badly-worded question on my part. Like, I meant _ will you _marry me?”

Patrick stares at him. He looks frozen in time. 

“It’s just,” Pete presses on, shuffling closer on his knee in an awkward, slithery way. “It’s just, I _ thought _ I was done with marriage, but then I met you and… Actually, I think I’m kind of into it. With you. I want to say ‘this is my _ husband,’ _ or ‘let me just ask my _ husband,’ _ or, ‘my _ husband _ won an Oscar.’”

“I haven’t won,” Patrick says vaguely. “I mean, it’s just a nomination, you know.”

Pete puts his hand on Patrick’s hip. Just to steady himself. He’s suddenly very _ aware _ of the world spinning. Like, he can _ feel _ it dancing through space at 1,000 miles an hour. His heart’s going roughly the same speed. He _ goggles _at Patrick. Unattractive. Like a goldfish.

“That’s… not really an answer,” Pete says hesitantly. “Not that you have to. You know. _ Answer. _ You can think about it, or say no, or… whatever.”

Throw his heart against the wall. Wait for it to stick. Maybe it doesn’t have to hurt. Maybe someone can _ catch _ his heart, before it hits. Pete looks into Patrick’s eyes and tries to show so much love and trust and hope. 

“No,” Patrick says, with confidence. Pete’s face crumples like balled paper. 

“Oh,” Pete says, his stomach swooping down toward his knees. “That’s — Oh. No, that’s fine. No, let’s… you’re right. This was—”

“Oh godding _ fuck, _ not no to _ you!” _ Patrick grabs Pete by the face and stares at him with an earnestness that borders on the terrifying. “I meant no, I don’t need to think about it. Because I’m saying yes. To you.”

“Yes?” Pete repeats slowly, experiencing petrification of the limbic system, on his knees with the ring still held out in his shaking hand. “Yes, you’ll marry me? Just so we’re clear. Say, _yes,_ _Pete, of course I’ll marry you.”_

“Yes, you bloody stupid bugger,” Patrick says, laughing and crying into Pete’s mouth. “Yes I’ll bloody marry you, you great big stupid, wonderful, _ sexy _…”

Pete kisses Patrick hard and thinks the world really doesn’t seem so bad now Patrick is there to face it with him. Once, Pete was crushed earth and jagged rocks but now Patrick — Patrick is like a calm, grey ocean. He erodes the sharper parts of Pete, accentuates him, makes him worthwhile. Together, they’re a shoreline. And that’s kind of awesome. 

***

It ends like this.

In the hall of the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles. There are so many stars packed inside that they make their own constellation. Patrick stands out, dapper in his tuxedo, and like Pete once said, he shines like Mars. Pete is as proud of him as any fiance has any sort of right to be. 

They sit together, holding hands, as free and open as two people couple hope for. Quiet now, they’re making the announcement for Best Actor and Patrick has sworn up and down and placed bets and made posts on Twitter and, just, generally made everyone aware that he’s _ totally _ not going to win. Pete knows he’s wrong, but arguing with Patrick is like poking a honey badger in the face: it’s an amusing _ idea, _ but Pete values the functional use of all of his fingers, so he doesn’t do it.

On the stage, Colin Firth slits open the envelope with his thumb. “Let’s take a look at the nominees.”

“A Brit,” Pete hisses into Patrick’s ear, as the nomination reel starts to play. “A Brit for a Brit.”

“Fuck off,” Patrick snaps. He says it _ just _ as the camera pans to his face. Pete’s grin is epic.

Colin leans toward the microphone. “And the winner of the award for Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is...” he pauses, looks down and smiles, “Ah, lovely.”

Patrick’s squeezes Pete’s hand fractionally harder. Since he’s already got Pete in a Force-style death grip, Pete winces and decides that unbroken fingers are overrated. Patrick’s breathing is fast under his dress shirt. His engagement ring winks in the light and he looks so lovely, as enchanting and wonderful as any fairy tale prince, and it doesn’t matter if he wins or if he loses because they made a movie that _ means something, _ and that legacy will live on beyond the peacock glamour of awards season. 

It doesn’t matter, not really. Not in any literal or cosmic sense. Because they met and they fell in love and now they get to spend the rest of their lives making one another happier. They get to spend their time together, falling more in love by fractions and degrees and that’s all Pete — or, like, _ anyone _really — can ever hope for, isn’t it? 

It doesn’t matter if Patrick wins, but Pete, fuck, Pete still _ wants _ him to. He still holds his breath and rubs his thumb lightly over Patrick’s knuckles and closes his eyes and prays _fiercely._

“Patrick Stump, Save Rock and Roll.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that. Thank you so much to everyone who's left comments or kudos or shouted at me on tumblr, or just read along every week and enjoyed it. See you folks next time, alright?


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